Window
by AndBeAVillian
Summary: The world is not done with you, even if Jill Valentine died long ago with her dreams and her faith. WeskerxJill. Revised up to chpt 3.
1. Falling and Dying

_A/N: Sorry, revising again. Bad habit. _

_Falling and Dying_

* * *

_Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth_

_ - look at the dying man's struggle at his last extremity_

_ and then tell me that something that begins and ends thus could be intended for enjoyment. _

_-__Soren Keirkegaard_

* * *

Have you been to Walmart lately? Go there sometime. Listen to the angry wails of children, the disgruntled waiting in lines, see the empty eyes of the cashiers. Look at the whales of humanity. Pinnacle of evolution.

Do you feel dirty yet? Looking at this filth?

Do you see beauty here? Are you proud to be a part of them?

This is where it begins. With beauty and pride. For a few it begins with a catalyst, a man who would be God. Would cull the weak from the strong. For more it began with a low moan in the shadows, the sickly smell of decay. A shambling thing biting an artery, sucking down hot blood.

For the sly ones who know it began with a strange man in a mansion with children and leeches who wanted a better world.

It began with a dream as old as time, a philosopher's idealistic vision: a better world, filled with worthy people. Older than you or Umbrella itself.

Shhhh. Don't object. You think humanity deserves this. In those moments when you were screaming at Irons and frantically telling everyone who would listen there's fucking flesh eating _things_ in the forest, your squad is _gone_ you saw them die horribly and all you got was laughter and derision.

Cracked under the stress they said. No evidence. Perhaps delusional.

They deserve this. They had a chance to do something, to leave, to prepare, to hold someone accountable for the people you watched die screaming. But Racoon City was at Walmart. At the mall.

Has the price of milk gone up? What about diapers? Did you preorder that videogame?

No one listened. It came for them. And now the world isn't listening while you watch again.

It's more than you can bear.

You're the one who remembers the screams. The child begging mommy to stop I'm scared mommy why won't you say anything mommy what's wrong with your eyes stay away – and then the screams. Remember the sound of flesh being ripped from bone, of sinews snapping under pressure. The smell of rotting flesh growing stronger as shambling limbs come closer. The moans of the infected.

You can't forget. Your dreams won't let you.

You knew those faces. Knew the little man who owned the corner store where you got the paper every morning. You blew his face off with a shotgun as he lunged at you.

The little boys you taught to pitch and bat at little league? You saw their sharp little teeth in a screaming woman's entrails as you threw the grenade at them.

You wake screaming from dreams of a town gone that will never leave you.

But don't be bitter. You have no right. You have more than so many others.

You are the _lucky _one. You survived.

No you didn't. You just died in different ways.

You fell. Like in your dreams.

Your booted feet moved with the speed of desperation as you forced air past your aching throat into overworked lungs. You had to save him. Chris. You had no weapon, gun and knife both gone but your body was all you needed.

Muscles ached as you forced yourself faster, not thinking of anything but the moment.

Not of who you were going to hit or how you were going to die.

Glass sliced your hands making you bleed but Wesker was screaming and falling with you. Triumph was a hot rush before you hear Chris calling your name in agony.

You will never see him again. You hope he knows how much you loved him. Pray he knows as you fall too quickly and yet slowly grimly grasping a warm leather coat with both hand. The coat of a man you trusted.

A traitor.

You are a blade forged in his furnace, trained and molded by his hand. His own creation stabbing him in the back. So like him. Its fucking poetic.

The thought bothers you. He's not something you ever want to be or see things in common with.

You twist and grasp. You will looking in the eyes while you fall. Your eyes will be the last thing he sees.

His eyes are red-gold, pupils slit.

His face reminds you of a past you remember so well but feel so far from. Sharp angry features, glaring confused eyes. You have seen this face before. The day he found out the cat's name.

His eyes remind you of the cat. A cat named Albert who lived in the Raccoon City station and had the same name as a Captain there. A cat you forgot.

Your lips quirk in a smile as hysterical laughter bubbles in your throat.

You wonder if he survived or if he caught a zombie mouse.

Hellfire eyes stare in confusion as you hold his face in your hand.

Perhaps you are mad. The whole world is mad what does it matter?

All you can think of is how Wesker has Al's eyes.

You hit hard.

The water killed you. Your very bones remember.

At the moment of death you became a window and shattered, every shard reflecting your face. Each a piece of your memory, your life, all the things you hold so dear. After what you've lost you can't bear to lose even one.

You can't bear to forget what no one else seems to remember.

The glass cuts your hands and your blood is the mortar as you brick yourself back together.

What you see is a face you don't recognize.

A sallow blond face with your eyes. Blue windows to a different soul.

The blood from your hands is like a rope and you can't break free, can't leave.

Life is not done with you yet again even if Jill Valentine died in the Spencer Mansion long ago, died with her dreams and her faith. And died again the sacrifice to cleanse humanity's soul.

You are just a creature of vengeance. You are a Fury.

And this is the story of your new life.

* * *

_Dying is a wild night and a new road. - Emily Dickinson_


	2. Down the Rabbit Hole

_A/N: Revising. It needs it. Reviews are always appreciated. _

_Down the Rabbit Hole_

* * *

_Death borders upon our birth,_

_ and our cradle stands in the grave._

_- Joseph Hall_

* * *

_I'm dead. There was a window. I fell. _

Her very bones know this. Was it a door instead of a window? No, no the glass cut her hands as she fell. Like in her dream. The one she gets over and over. Falling and dying.

_Life is but a dream. Or was it a stage? D__own went Alice...never once considering how in the world she was to get out again..._

Out to where she doesn't know. Its cold here. So cold. Something...wet and thick is surrounding her. Dark. Is it her? Is she swimming in her own fluid? Rotting in a grave or being reborn? Both maybe, nothing is sacred in this mad world.

_I can't see? What's to see inside myself..._

Something tells her she should care. Shouldn't be here, whatever godforsaken place this is. Colder. The wet thickness is lessening, air rushing in to dry whatever fluid this second womb has covered her with.

So cold.

In her dreams she is clinging to something (_someone?) _warm as she falls. She tries to open her eyes but the thick liquid seals her lashes tight. Limbs twitching.

_Am I dreaming? I never stay dead in my dreams...cat came back..._

Cat. It was familiar. Nothing is familiar except falling and clinging. Why is the cat familiar? Did she own a cat? No. No, the cat belonged to them.

_Them? _

Flickers. She grabs for it. A shiny shard of memory slicing her. Its like watching someone else's life on an old flickering movie screen. Looking through blue windows with a different soul. Shattered windows, each piece reflecting her face.

_But doesn't Alice follow a rabbit...?_

* * *

_S.T.A.R.S._

_Her uniform is so blue, ironed and unfaded it must be new. She is new, nervous and excited. First day on the job. Special Tactics And Rescue Service. Its a dream finally come true. The hinges creek as she pushes the door to her new squad bay open. Stomach full of giddy butterflies._

"_Guys the Captain is going to kill us if we don't get the damn cat out of there. Damnit Redfield, why did you put him in the air vents again?" A thin dark haired man in a puffy yellow vest is standing on a chair shaking a container of cat treats. _

"_You came up with it Brad, you're one to talk." Leaning against the wall is amusement wrapped in a ruggedly handsome shell wrapped in stubble. Jill stares, butterflies and confusion. She turns to the third mad man there._

"_You're Valentine?" Tall, thick and solid; an ax wouldn't look out of place on this rugged lumberjack of a man. His dark eyes are merry as he smiles at her nod, waves her in with the steaming cup in his left hand, dropping the used teabag in the trash._

"_Barry. How good are you with cats young lady? Can you get Albert down?" Jill finally blinks, eyebrows crawling toward her hairline before she speaks._

"_Got any tuna?"_

_Three pairs of eyes regard her, taking stock of her small frame and pretty face. _

_The vent is high up, much higher than her small form can reach even from a chair. The precarious chair-on-table apparatus is an accident waiting to happen. _

_Jill tries not to think of it. Fear on her first day is not a good start, not here where weakness can be smelled like fresh meat among carnivores. Light shines off a pair of appraising eyes in the dark vent, hypnotic red-gold eyes. _

_She has never seen eyes like that before. _

_"Hey Al, do you like fish?" She holds the can at the entrance, waiting patiently for furry judgement. _

Can't rush cats. Little bastards think they're Gods. Egyptians worshiped them, I guess if you believe enough others will too.

_"You've got pretty eyes Al, I've never seen eyes like that before." The blacker shape in the dark moves carefully closer, revealing sleek black fur and a twitching pink nose following the can she slowly pulls toward her. Carrot and the stick. _

Got you.

_Small white claws dig into her sleeve, climbing down her arm toward the promise of fish. Jill cradles his little body. _

"_I bet you get all the lady cats Albert, you're a pretty boy." Al rubs her hand in appreciation, purring like a small engine. "Or can I call you Al? Albert doesn't really suit you." _

"Who named the cat Albert?_" Its a hissing snarl barely above a whisper but all the more venomous for it. She jumps and the chair wobbles, overturns taking her and Al down with it. The landing is broken by something warm and not exactly soft but softer than the floor._

_ A person._

_ Now covered in tuna._

Oh shit.

_ She's never gotten up so fast in her life, Al clutched to her chest. _

"_Oh my god I am so sorry -" Apologies are tripping over each other, running off her tongue. Three other voices speaking at once. _

_"Captain!-" _

_"Everyone alright?-" _

_"The cat was here first Sir-"_

_Blue eyes spitting fire are visible through sunglasses knocked askew. Blond hair and sharp features. Mouth compressed so tightly his lips are almost invisible. She sees the plaque on the half opened door behind him. _

_Captain Albert Wesker. _

_Jill Valentine is a survivor, a tough girl. She feels shrunken, like she will sink through the floor. Al the cat keeps on purring, red-gold eyes gleaming. Claws gripping her flesh through the new uniform._

* * *

Its gone, sand slipping through her hands faster the harder she tries to hold onto the memory. Old footage fraying.

Someone is wiping the goo from her face, loosening the glue on her eyes. She can see blurry dark shapes. Broken sounds are coming from somewhere close.

_From me? _

Eyes. With slit pupils like a cat. Someone is muttering in a sing song voice over and over. A nursery rhyme...

"The cat came back the very next day...they thought he was a goner but he wouldn't stay away..."

Hypnotic red-gold eyes float above her, bright twin suns to her sensitive eyes.

_Al?_

* * *

_Who has not sat before his own heart's curtain? _

_It lifts: and the scenery is falling apart._

_- Rainer Maria Rilke_

* * *

A/N: Does anyone else hear Star Wars music whenever a story mentions twin suns? Or is that just me?


	3. The Pool Of Tears

_A/N: Revising. It needs it. Enjoy._

_ Thank you to DarkGothElegantGirl22 for the review, its very much appreciated...wherever its going it won't be pretty._

_The Pool of Tears_

* * *

_Alice - What do you mean by that? I ought to know who I am._

_Absolum -Yes, you ought. Stupid girl._

* * *

_Hurts. Why?_

Are her eyes bleeding? Her ears? Liquid is leaking from her eyes. It must be blood. Pain brings blood, calls to it. She is steeped in blood and pain.

The world has never been this bright. Or are the flickers dimmed like the rest of her mind? The pieces fit once but she can't seem to find how. She screams at the light, calling for the darkness. Lashing out at anything and everything.

_It hurts, why does it hurt? _

The light she can dim, lashes closed tight. The sounds, the smells she can't. The wheezes of rancid air moving sounds like a gale, the scraping of pens nails on a chalk board. Jill swears she can feel the vibrations of so many heartbeats in the cold thing she lays on. The reek of humanity is oppressive, the scent of sterility overpowering. A packed sauna with bleach incense.

_It hurts. _

So much and so loud. Do the shapes behind her eyelids know how agonizing they are? How their voices make her head explode? Are they angry? Why the yelling? She screams, trying to drown their sounds with her own. So loud, so many voices, so many sounds. Where is the silence and the dark?

Things are burrowed in her chest, twisting. A shard glimmers but she can't hold onto it anymore, sharp edges painful in her fractured mind.

_Where is Al? _

"_-_sensory overload, P30 hasn't been perfected...maybe with more time..."

"-off the lights!"

"-sedative...get everyone out before...coma-"

Can't they wait their turn? Who can listen when they all talk at once? She screams louder, thrashes harder body flopping against restraints like a fish. Uncoordinated, jerky movements. Too fast and too far nothing quite as she remembers it should be. The thing buried in her arm slips out (_IV?), _she can smell her own blood as it permeates the room. The scent is wrong, sickly sweet festering beneath the surface.

_Nothing fits. Why? It feels like this body isn't mine._

The voices might know. She tries to ask them, but the sounds lessen. Driven away by her shrieking voice. Lids open to black not dark enough, the lights are off but she still sees.

_Wrong. _

A rhythmic thudding breaks the silence. A funeral bell tolling to the witching hour. Liquid seeps from her eyes.

Venomous red gold eyes glow across the room. Sharp features. Haloed with blurriness he is the only thing she can bring into focus. He's missing something from her memories but not the ever present anger. Blood maybe?

_He doesn't fit._

"Al?" The cat and not the cat. Floating eyes and white smile. A mouse should be dangling from those teeth.

_Right eyes wrong body._ _Right body wrong eyes? Cats...witch's familiar...walkers inbetween...Gods..._

"Captain?" Unreadable eyes, glittering like shards in a half-remembered dream. Flashes she can't catch.

_WRONG._

"Concentrate on my voice. Ignore the other sounds." Ferryman for the dead and she has no coin for passage. His voice is like the eyes, burning into her. All she can hear is his voice nothing else.

Not even her own breathing. Things twisting in her chest, mind screaming in protest. Nothing in the world exists but them.

The first prickles of fear. The mouse is already dangling from those white teeth, squirming too late.

The shards of her mind cut deep but she grasps desperately and doesn't let go.

* * *

_S.T.A.R.S. has two captains, but if you ask for the Captain everyone will know who you want. He is the architect of both Alpha and Bravo squads, the final say in every decision. _

The God of S.T.A.R.S...everyone bring a sacrificial offering...

_Jill tries very hard to like the man. _

___The Captain wields charisma like any other weapon, precisely and sparingly. _

_The girl at the hotel desk blushes at him with huge doe-like eyes, running a giddy hand through her hair. The Captain smiles back at her from behind his dark lenses, charm on full blast. A kid with a magnifying glass setting an ant on fire. _

_ Jill shifts uncomfortably in the plush green chair, staring determinedly at the electric fireplace. The artfully rustic lobby is an airy public room. The expression on the girl's face belongs in a bedroom, hidden from her voyeuristic eyes._

_ She is the intruder in this scene, the dirty interloper. _

_The false flames flicker before her steady gaze, giving no heat but all the appearance of fire. _

_Like Wesker himself. _

He only flirts to get something. I've never seen him even look at a girl twice. Or a guy either.

_Irons had made the reservation for one room with a single double bed. Wesker was working on charming his way into two._

If it was Forest or Brad the desk girl would have company tonight...but the Captain doesn't do that...

_The desk girl's voice takes on a breathy quality as a gloved hand brushes a stray hair behind her ear, pupils huge and dark. Thunder drowns out the sound of her boots as Jill slips quietly out the door, grateful for the distracting flashes of lightening. _

_The cement wall is cold as she leans against it, considering running out into the storm. Maybe hopping in a few puddles. _

_The chill in her bones has little to do with temperature. _

___The driving rain and dreary grey skies match Jill's mood perfectly. __Driving the Captain to the district conference had been the longest, quietest ride of her life. A pin drop would have sounded like a bomb. Four hours of uncomfortable silence and stolen glances._

___Albert Wesker is a man of many masks, all of them real and none of them real. _

___The charming face the girl behind the desk sees is mostly a lie; a very very good one. _

___She can't see his eyes. _

_Those blue eyes are dead lakes, unchanging. The skin on the back of Jill's neck crawls at the memory of the few times he has smiled without the dark glasses._

_Jill wraps her arms around herself, trying to banish bone-deep cold. _

_For the guys the Captain's sunglasses are a never ending source of amusement. How he can wear them in the pitch black of night and not fall on his face is a constant source of speculation, the theories ranging from radioactive bites to a deal with the devil._

_Jill is just glad she has an excuse to believe his false smiles. The chunks of blue ice set in his face never melt. In eight months she has never seen him bleed, cry, or laugh._

_Around him she feels shrunken, a messy child in authority's presence. _

He must not like me. Well, not that he likes anyone.

_"Ready Miss Valentine?" The voice suddenly at her elbow is just tired, Wesker's approach silent as the grave. Any hint of lightheartedness gone from his sharp features, switched off as easily as a light. An actor off stage. He holds the door open for her, ever the practiced gentleman. _

_Shivers run down her skin._

I'll follow any of his orders but man he can be freaky as fuck.

_ Shouldering her own bag Jill moves toward the stairs after him, acutely aware of both the desk girl's territorial stare and the uncontrolled flicker of disgust on the Captain's face. He must be exhausted for his masks to be slipping so badly._

What's he really like?

_Her muscles tense slightly when a hand comes to rest briefly on her elbow. __Physical contact is another thing Wesker uses sparingly._

_If looks could kill Jill would be dead on the spot. _

_ Three flights up he stops in front of a door, pulling two keycards out of his pocket. _

_"All the rooms are full because of the conference. I'm afraid we're stuck with the reservation." He doesn't look at her, sliding the card into the slot. "If this makes you at all uncomfortable-"_

_"S'alright sir. Your virtue is safe with me."_

_Ever the gentleman he holds the door. She moves into the dark room, setting her bag down in the corner. He stays by the door, just a bit too still. Sharp features are naked when she turns back, sunglasses hanging from the pocket of his combat shirt._

_Dead blue lakes, intelligence shining without the filter of emotion stare at her for a long moment. Measuring. A warm hand comes to rest carefully on her shoulder._

Funny I always think he should feel...different. Colder or warmer or just something not human. Weird.

"_Irons was originally supposed to attend this conference with you." The tone is even and quiet, implication plain. Jill surveys the single double bed in the room, heart flopping in her chest. _

Oh.

_"I won't let the desk girl rape you either Captain."_

_The surprised laugh is the most genuine emotion she has ever seen from him besides coiled rage. For just a moment life sparks in dead eyes._

_Jill tries very hard to like him. _

_Not even a scalding shower can leech the chill from her bones. _

_The silence on the ride back is almost companionable._

* * *

Dead white teeth peek through pale lips, a smile fully reaching his hellfire eyes.

_I know what's missing._

The masks are gone. Albert Wesker doesn't feel the need to hide from her.

She is the sacrificial offering.

* * *

_How fine you look when dressed in rage..._

_You're lucky, too. Red eyes suit so few._

_ - Cheshire cat_

* * *

Reviews are appreciated! Even if you hate it.


	4. Advice from a Caterpillar

_A/n: Still with me? You perseverance is to be applauded. Again DarkElegantGothGirl22 a huge thank you for reviewing. It's probably not going to get any lighter. I'm trying to get it all out before the inspiration deserts me, and I can't see their story ending anyway but tragically._

_Revising. Sorry. _

_Advice from a Caterpillar_

* * *

_You aren't the same as you were before..._

_ You've lost your muchness. _

_- Mad Hatter_

* * *

_Fingers fly across the keys, the melody bouncing and light. Dancing. Gypsy music._

"_Your fingers are quick little one. Be quick and careful and they will always serve you well my grandaughter." Gran's voice is raspy, accented. From the Old Country. Her hands are gnarled but quick and clever. Too quick and clever Mamma says._

_Mamma doesn't like some of the things Gran teaches her. Secrets. Doesn't understand why Gran feels Jill needs to know how to unlock, lie, steal, and play the piano. Mamma wants her to be out playing and dreaming of ponies. Not spending hours learning to pick pockets. Mamma had thrown things that day._

"_You are Romani Jill Valentine. Never forget where you come from, who you are. Promise me you will not forget." Gran's grey eyes get very sharp and sad when she says it. She says it often._

_Mamma gets nervous when Gran looks at her like that. Silly superstitions of an old hag and a different time. But Gran is old and her time is short, she can be humored. The old ways must be humored._

"_I promise Gran! Cross my heart and hope to die!" Jill always promises. The sad never quite leaves Gran's face._

"_I don't have much time left little one." The rattling cough hasn't left in months, and Gran trusts what the cards tell her. The deck with all the strange intricate pictures. She will not read the cards for Jill. Once she laid them out, went pale and hurriedly put them away. Only once._

_Only Gran touches the deck. Mamma says the cards are cursed. The sadness in those grey eyes is pronounced today._

"_Your fate will be hard little one. Listen to your dreams. The women of our family are dreamers. Never forget. Promise me."_

_Gran dies a week later. Jill is seven. She forgets._

* * *

She remembers.

_I am Jill Valentine. Or I was._

Blue windows with a different soul.

_I dream of falling and dying._

"Stand up." Glowing eyes haunting her waking moments.

Another flicker. Another shard.

Her hands will never stop bleeding.

* * *

"_You're so lucky Jill." Rebecca Chambers is 18, green and nervous. Joe Frost was promoted to Alpha squad today. By the Captain. Rebecca feels small._

"_They respect you." She picks the polish from her nails. Jill laughs, spoon scraping tuna into a small bowl. Gran had called her Prikasa growing up. Very bad luck._

_Or omen._

" _I _landed _on the Captain my first day. He hasn't killed me yet. Just give it time, you've just gotta grow into the team." Jill's first day is famous at the station, along with her cooking skills. Gran taught her well. Barry has never had a better sandwich. Rebecca shudders, cold coffee cup forgotten on the counter._

"_I would've _died_. Your Captain looks scary enough when nothing pisses him off." All of Alpha squad wouldn't disagree. Jill doesn't mention how she walks on eggshells around the Captain. Sometimes she thinks she can feel his gaze from behind the dark lenses he's never without. It feels like someone is walking over her grave. She tells herself he watches her because she talks to Al so much and of course its his name too._

_Rebecca doesn't need to know that. Al meows impatiently._

"_Won't argue with you there." She keeps it light. Rookies need comforting. Jill isn't the best at it. Having a uterus doesn't necessarily make emotional shit her thing despite what Irons seems to think. "There you go Al. You're such a pretty boy." The tuna bowl touches the floor as she croons._

"_Why do you feed the cat so often?"_

"_For all the mice he catches. Its a reward."_

"_Uh Jill he leaves those mice on the Captain's desk. I don't think you should be rewarding him..."_

"_He's trying to teach him to hunt, like he would a kitten. He can't help it if Wesker doesn't eat mice!" Both girls are laughing, Rebecca is relaxing. Jill sends her back to Bravo with some final wisdom._

"_Don't worry about luck. Do your best with what you've got Becs. My Gran used to say all luck runs out eventually. Even bad luck."_

_The younger woman disappears down the hallway._

"_All luck runs out?" Sibilant voice from behind her. The Captain is refilling his coffee mug._

_Jill doesn't remember him entering the breakroom. Nervous butterflies escape their chrysalises in her stomach._

"_She also said to always carry a coin to pay the Ferryman. I figured I'd leave that part out."_

_He watches her go, thoughtful._

* * *

She falls trying to stand, limbs going too fast and too far. He does not move to help her.

"Slowly. You are faster now, super human. Hopefully your small human mind will be able to handle it all."

White teeth in a perfect smile.

"Now stand."

She doesn't want to. Twisting in her chest. Strings on her heart.

_Dance puppet dance._

She stands.

"What have you done to me?"

"Improvements. Now walk."

* * *

_I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, Sir,_

_ because I'm not myself you see._

_ - Alice_

* * *

A/N - Review? Please?

Not all gypsies are thieves and fortune tellers. That's my disclaimer.


	5. Valkyrie

_A/N: A huge thank you to my lovely reviewers! And to the rest of you who have made it this far. _

_DarkElegantGothGirl22: Gran's fun! It was an episode of Criminal Minds that inspired her! _

_AryaRiker: Funny how the mind works sometimes. I was in a car accident once and all I could think of was missing biology lab. Silly. There's a fic around somewhere about a cat named Albert. I don't know who wrote it, but the credit is all theirs for the idea. _

_Revising. Sorry. _

_Valkyrie_

* * *

_I've often seen a cat without a grin...but a grin without a cat! _

_- Alice_

* * *

The room is pitch black. He can see without difficulty, glowing hellfire eyes floating in the darkness.

Careful hands delicately balance the three of spades against the jack of clubs at eye level in front of him. His own card castle.

_Waiting for the cadaverous sleeping beauty to wake to her monster prince. Waiting for the valiant to wake to Valhalla where she will live forever._

White teeth flash in the dark.

The worthy will be found. The Immune.

Like her.

She is irrevocably his now. Made in his image pale, blond, and ethereal.

_Beautiful._

Humanity will never be enough for her now.

_Chris will never be enough._

Lips twitch in a smirk.

After Raccoon City humanity would never be enough again. After the screams of the dying, the rending of flesh from bone, the smell of decay...no, she can never go back to the bloated corrupt civilization that does nothing to prevent its own downfall.

_Humanity is at its best when faced with its own mortality. The only way to find the worthy._

She is his first warrior. Jill Valentine will become the righteous right hand of God. It will take time. Her delusions will have to be broken, her mind trained.

P30 will be her jeweled collar.

Waiting.

Remembering.

White teeth and floating eyes.

The house of cards grows ever higher.

* * *

_Jill's eyes are pale blue. Like his own from a time before hellfire. _

_He has dreamed of ripping those eyes from their sockets. No one has ever been like him, even then._

_Laughing and crying as they fell, blue eyes sparkling so near his own. His face in her hand, baptized in her blood._

What the fuck was so funny?

_His hands clench on the lax body sinking slowly in front of him as he rockets to the surface. From such a height hitting water is like hitting concrete. His body protests the unnecessary burden but indomitable strength of will overrides convenience. Jill's corporeal form hits the rocky beach in front of him, dropped like a sack of potatoes. _

"_Jill jill jill jill..." Chris Redfield's cry for his fallen partner dances across the water, bouncing off the rocks in a fading refrain. Wesker spares an upward glare. _

Fucking thorns in my side the pair of them.

_A glint of blue catches his eye. Floating slowly down, knocked off by the wind, is a blue trucker hat. _

_It reminds him of another blue hat she used to wear in another lifetime. A time when he was a fragile flawed thing leading a petty band. _

My petty band.

_Molded and forged in his furnace, S.T.A.R.S. Alpha squad had acquitted itself well. Surviving long after so many "elite" units had failed. _

She had called him a traitor once. He'd tried to shoot her. Alpha squad should've followed him into hell itself without complaint. It was not their place to judge him.

_A muscle twitches in his jaw. _

They would've made worthy servants except for their stupid sentimentality. Fools.

_Red gold eyes glare down at the lax form of Jill Valentine, S.T.A.R.S. Rear security officer, who threw herself out a window to save her partner. Who smiled into her enemy's eyes as she fell._

Loyal to the end.

_Perhaps that loyalty can be twisted. The prodigal children brought back into the fold. _

_He shakes off the nostalgia, gathering her bleeding body in his arms. _

_Or they will die. _

_White teeth flash in a perfect smile._

* * *

Reincarnated into his world, strong and thrashing. Fighting already. One of his own.

She calls his name.

She will be as loyal now as she was in another lifetime. When he was frail and flawed.

"I dream of falling and dying." She is murmuring in her infancy.

A memory half forgotten.

* * *

_A hand goes for the gun on the nightstand, throwing bedding aside. The ringing continues, unafraid of the weapon. Numbers glow. Three am._

Its not an biohazard alarm. Its just the phone. Stupid. Could be about the virus...

_Albert Wesker is brilliant. Each piece on the chessboard of his fate has been placed with care, each move made three steps ahead of his opponents. Few variables. All angles weighed dispassionately. It makes him a brilliant scientist and equally brilliant Captain. _

Damnit.

_He snatches the phone from its cradle, not bothering to put the gun down. Three am phone calls mean sex or emergencies. Or both. He wants neither distraction. _

"_Wesker" Irritation makes the odd accent he has a bit more pronounced, the hiss more apparent. Cold blooded nature coming to the surface, mask almost slipping. A snake among the pigeons. _

"_Captain?" The voice is shaky. Female. He can place it in an instant, incredible memory unstrained. That voice has crackled over enough radios for him to recognize it over phonelines with ease. It's owner has blue eyes so like his own it irritates him._

Windows to the soul.

_Its a cliché and he shakes it off. Unimportant. Labored breathing comes through the speaker._

Sex and emergencies...

_A muscle twitches in his jaw. _

"_Valentine. What happened?" Emergency then? She doesn't call him at three am off duty. Barry is on duty tonight._

Probably eating sandwiches and smearing the paperwork with mayo again.

_His wince is reflexive. The thought is shoved ruthlessly aside. Focus, he needs to focus. Maybe someone has been injured..._

"_Sir..." A sniffle. Her voice trails off, thick with...tears?_

Fought with the idiot again?

_A hand smooths back blond hair, frown becoming more pronounced. Redfield. Shooting something looks a bit more attractive, but the silence is thick and he can brood on his dislike later. She's smart enough to know he has no patience for self-inflicted stupidity._

"_Valentine?" Something is wrong. He feels uneasy, something twisting in his gut. The gun is a familiar, comforting weight in his hand. Unknowns are variables. He hates variables. _

"_Are you alright Captain?" _

_He stares at the phone cradle. Blinks. _

What the hell?

"_Outside of it being _three am_ Valentine I am fine - " Its a snap. He sets the gun down, back on the table by his bed. Cobra spreading its hood, ire aroused ready to strike. _

"_You died. I dreamed you died. I dreamed of you falling and dying." The words cut him off, thrust out with effort intense and raw. A warning of some kind. "Captain _stay away from windows._ Alright? I..didn't mean to wake you...I...Sorry sir. Ignore it. Please." _

_He stares at the phone in his hand. _

_Vaguely he hears the dial tone, and he sees blue eyes in his mind._

_Windows to the soul._

Are tears the blood of souls? Does hers bleed for my "death"?

_He lets the thought stay. _

_Pleased._

* * *

She will find the worthy, fill the halls of his Valhalla with fit warriors.

She will be Valkyrie.

He turns over the last card. The Queen of Hearts.

_Maybe._

Hellfire eyes glow dully.

Jill Valentine is stirring.

* * *

_Glory to the fallen! Valhalla for the victorious dead! _

_- Anon_


	6. Lady Macbeth and Narcissus

_A/N: DarkElegantGothGirl22: Thank you again for the review! I do agree, dark isn't necessarily bad. I find it more interesting than fluff. I'm glad it spoke to you. I hope it still does. _

_Welcome back! Still with me? Onward we go. With a bit less Alice in Wonderland. _

_Lady Macbeth and Narcissus_

* * *

_Those who the gods destroy they first drive mad. - Hercule Poirot_

* * *

How long has she been here? Days? Weeks?

The white walls give no answer. She turns on the tap with shaking hands. Blood leaves dark smears on the silver handle.

_I don't know. Forever._

A rhythmic thudding in the distance. Human ears wouldn't hear it but hers do.

_Him._

She _knows_. Like some damn homing pigeon. Her skin crawls, fingers clench on the handle.

_How long?_

Time has no meaning here. She sleeps when heavy eyelids will not stay open, eats when ordered. Her new eyes have never seen the sun, new skin never felt its warmth.

Only his unnatural eyes. A twin sunrise for her afterlife.

In alabaster halls unnaturally bright she has been killing since she could walk, her first steps leaving bloody footprints.

_How many? I swore I would remember...but I...don't know._

Dreams and waking run together. Where one ends and another begins is a blurred haze.

This white underworld is nothing but bland food, little sleep, death, and this.

The aftermath. The clean up.

This.

In the mirror a pale face stares back at her. Spattered with red skin white as snow.

_That's me. _

Jill leans on the counter, head bowing as if under a great weight.

Her skin should be red. It should be indelibly stained with the essence of her victims. A scarlet letter for the world to see. To see what she smells like perfume on her skin.

_Why isn't it red?_

It should be red.

_It should be red._

She'll make it red. Scoured raw and bleeding, the shell finally showing the creature within. Steeped in blood and pain.

Panicked hands grab the soap. Anything to get it off.

_Hurry. Lather. Rinse. Repeat._

The bell tolls. Footsteps in the distance.

_Scrub harder, faster, hurry hurryhurryhurry_ _He's coming! _

So much blood she has shed. From the moment she could walk he asked her to kill. Again and again. The best training is with the real thing according to him. Then she will be ready to find the worthy.

He will make her ready.

_Like he did in another lifetime. When he trained his team to survive. _

Ever louder the sound drums in her ears while the smell fills her nostrils. The sound of his approaching is Jill Valentine's funeral bell.

She is afraid.

Blood wells along her cracked knuckles, starts to run down her hand.

_Not who I used to be...hurry lather rinse repeat he's coming! _

Her battlesuit was blue once. Blue and new like she had been in another lifetime. It shows what her skin does not.

Stained purple with blood.

_Coppery, metallic, salty. God. So strong. _

The footsteps echo in empty white halls. Closer.

Jill closes her eyes to the gaunt pale thing in the mirror.

Pale as a new moon, the stain won't stay on her. The smell all that remains.

_Death rides a pale horse._

Lips pull in a strange parody of a smile.

The lather is almost red now. Soap stings in her wounds. Burns.

Boots impact tile floor behind her. So close.

"Enough." His voice burns too. The claws on her heart twist and writhe.

_No._

Its not enough. She doesn't turn, won't stop, can't stop.

"Enough." Gloved hands cover her own, stop her frantic movements. Firm but gentle.

She is afraid.

He is ruthless and cold-blooded. Even when he is gentle it simmers under the surface.

When he is gentle she feels the predator in him.

Something cold is in her neck and her hands still. Jill is almost grateful.

P30 makes her not care she smells like carrion and looks like Death's mount.

P30 only cares about him.

"Sleep now Jill." Warm strong arms take hold of her. Jill clings to the only warm human (_He's not human. Neither is she what does it matter?) _contact she is allowed.

Blue eyes fall shut. Soul shuttered.

* * *

"_Are you still there Jilly?" _

_The voices in her dreams hurt. She dreams of people from better days becoming nightmares. Sometimes they scream and rage. Sometimes she just watches the faded film of her past life. Each is a piece of her shattered mind, mortared together with her blood. _

_This dream is different. Like falling and dying. A dream and not a dream._

"_Jilly? You're in there Jilly-girl." Worried voice trying to reach her._

_Joe Frost was tan and vital in life. Always moving, always smiling. Half his face is gone now. Flesh hangs in ragged strips from his bones, teethmarks of the cerberus who killed him etched on bone. _

_Rotted fingers stroke her hair, putrid arms hold her close. Jill doesn't even flinch. _

"_It's ok Jill. We've got you." A second voice. In life a coward's voice, nerves never far from the surface. _

_Once she had called Brad a Victorian Lady prone to hysterics and offered to find him smelling salts. Now she lets silent tears run down her face as she stares at the ruined thing he is._

"_We won't let you go. Don't worry." Joe tries to smile with the half face he has left. _

_Jill's smile is bittersweet. _

_In the waking world he will wonder what she smiles about._

* * *

Shoes tell many things about a woman. What she values, where she walks, her vision of herself in life.

Boots do not suit these feet.

Sleek black stilettos with red soles click loudly down the empty hall, slender hips swaying. The picture of youth.

Excella Gionne loves the red soles best.

_Red. The color of sin, passion, blood. Life._

She smiles to herself. Oh yes, she is a creature of life and passion. Reaching for every sensual experience she can, never satisfied. Vibrant youth and life distilled into a person.

Never insecure. Not before him.

Toned tan legs glide elegantly. Heels echoing. Grand entrance with no audience.

No was an unknown word. Men fell at her feet, offered her everything and she took from them all. Trying to fill that empty place in her with greedy hands. Larger than life were the men she chose. Artists, singers, adventurers. So much they offered her.

_The Queen of Hearts._

Every treasure.

He offers nothing. He stares at a pale girl.

Excella can't remember her name. Only her face.

_A grave is your home corpse girl. Leave him to the living. You have no right to him._

Red lips pull down at the edges. The girl is nothing. A ragged pale thing. Not alive.

Drained of vitality and color. Pretty but nothing like the fierce vitality the _life_ that is Excella. She exudes no sensuality, her eyes do not sparkle, skin lackluster, hair dull.

Clicking stops, her breath held. There through the open door she sees. Him.

_Oh._

He always takes her breath. Beautiful. She will never tell him so. He would be ashamed to be called beautiful. Handsome, sexy, appealing he would not mind but beautiful?

She can practically see his lips curling in distaste, the snort of his derision.

_Beautiful._

She will never tell him.

Reality returns with a sigh. The girl. He's holding the girl. Staring at her closed eyes and her pale face.

Air is sucked into her lungs as it hits her.

_His mirror. Can a man love his reflection? _

The pale thing is like him. Pale and ethereal and out of place. So like him is disturbs her.

"Excella." Naked hellfire eyes are watching her. The empty place in her chest fills. He is watching _her _now. Shoulders square themselves.

"Albert darling. There has been some discussion by the researchers about creating another P30 supersoldier -"

"No." Irritation flickers across his face. He wants her to drop it but she can't. His refusal to create another one galls her, and she desperately wants this damn girl to be less special.

This fucking corpse of a girl who is so like him she could be his fucking reflection sometimes.

"No. She is enough." Glowing orbs return to the girl in his arms.

Excella's red lips thin, dark eyes flare. So alive.

The picture of youth. Arrogant, crude, blazoning vibrant youth. So different from the dead girl he holds who is nothing more than a distorted reflecting pool.

_Its a phase. She's just new. _

But above all youth is vulnerable. Albert Wesker is power, charisma, and will. He fills the empty place in her chest and Excella is like the blind girl called Hope who is holding a harp with one string left but never stops playing.

Red soles flash as she storms away. He will tire of this new toy. She will pass.

She _must_ pass.

She will be a Goddess to his God.

_Off with her head..._

Red lips make a predatory smile.

* * *

_Out damned spot! Out I say!... Hell is murky... Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? - Lady Macbeth_

* * *

A/N Remember kids reviews are like candy .


	7. Wild One

_A/N: Welcome back! It's about to earn the M rating. You have been warned. _

_DarkGothElegantGirl22: As my favorite reviewer I am very glad you like it! Seriously, Wesker has a blond chick in a catsuit with her boobs hanging out at his beck and call. Excella _had_ to be pissed! She's a sort of predatory Juliet isn't she? Frighteningly single minded. Macbeth is like watching a train wreck but you can't look away. Madness at its best. I think Dream!Brad and Dream!Joseph will be back, but I'm not sure how yet._

_The Wild One_

* * *

_A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.__  
-__Niccolo Machiavelli_

* * *

Red soles. Artificial bloody footprints.

A smirk tugs the corners of his mouth. The shoe sits on the table in front of him, her clothes strewn haphazardly about his booted feet.

_Fashionable expensive bloody footprints. So like her. _

Only the best for an heiress brought by the Old Country. Still a disappointment. From Italy homeland of Machiavelli he had expected a more devious mind. Not one so easy to manipulate with promises of power and eternal youth. Such naivete was so unexpected.

_He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command._

Long hands slip a dark shirt over a muscular chest. Wesker doesn't look twice Excella's age but he feels the gap of understanding like language barrier. She is the brightest, crudest bit of coloring he has ever seen. A painter's muse. Fiery and tempestuous. Without much subtlety.

Gods paint in blood and flesh. Not oil and color.

_The wrong muse. Too overt. _

He turns the shoe over in his hands. From the bed comes the sound of Excella's even breathing.

In his mind he sees the bloody footprints of a real warrior, not the princess in her tower playing dress up. A pale warrior. He fights the impulse to scowl out of principal.

Across the room the girl turns restlessly. Never still even in sleep.

A book sits beside her left shoe. Romeo and Juliet. An odd counterpoint to the red soled black stiletto.

Her favorite. A girl's unrealistic fantasy.

_For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo. Like us she says._

Dead white teeth peek between pale lips. How can she confuse a lust-driven boy with him? Foolish girl.

_So sincere. So single minded she is in this "love." She chose a poor Romeo. _

He has no intentions of dying over one so lowly as her.

Hellfire eyes watch her movements from behind dark lenses. Thoughtful.

It was the wrong love story for Excella.

_Cleopatra or Titania maybe. Arrogant seductive women. But Juliet? _

Juliette would be innocent, fragile, helpless. Nothing like the body laid out before him. Tan skin glowing, dark rumpled hair loose on her pillow a sheet merely emphasizing her figure without any illusion of modesty. A woman to make blood flow to forbidden places. Sensual and cruel.

Wesker is unmoved.

_What is the beauty of women compared to the beauty of creation? _

Being officially dead was becoming tiresome. The woman before him was becoming tiresome. Her desire to make changes to his plans irked him. Especially recently.

_P30 is just an aside. Why can't she understand that?_

Long pale fingers drop the shoe in disgust. He can smell the odor of humanity, of her. The stink is overpowering. Silently he heads for the door.

To wash the stench off. The smell of decay, of lingering death.

Of mortality.

Musk and decay.

_Sex and corpses._

Disgusting. Necrophiliac he is not. Breaking in a new pharmaceutical CEO at this stage is a waste of precious time though. He will have to make the sacrifice.

So many things he has endured for his vision. This is just a small sacrifice. He could change her with his virus but he has no desire to. Pretending to be a closet hopeless romantic for eternity is as repulsive as her stench.

She will die.

The Queen of Hearts flashes in his mind.

Excella is not worthy.

A thought rises. Unbidden.

Half a building away is a blue eyed girl who still carries the ironic air of innocence, of fragility despite her strength.

A blue eyed girl who does not smell of mortality. The one who had moved him long ago.

He is too surprised to stifle the hissing intake of breath.

* * *

_R.P.D. coffee tasted like thick black day old hell. An acquired taste. Wesker scrubs his mug while it slowly finishes brewing. The rest of the station doesn't brew it right. Somehow they make it worse. _

_Light footsteps down the hall. The smell of tuna. An impatient meow. _

Damnit.

_She is feeding the cat again. _

"_Al. Albert. Al. Come here Al!" _

_Albert the cat. Her station "boyfriend."The cat doesn't like anyone else. Just her. _

_The males in R.P.D. completely understand why Al likes her. Wesker understands most. _

_A frustrated hiss threatens to crawl out his throat. _

_Jill Valentine talks to the cat like a lover. Like a fucking phone sex operator, breathy and low. A voice belonging to sinful dreams. His cock is like Pavlov's dog when she uses that voice. Twitching, eager. _

_Dripping. _

_He hates it. Hates the cat with a fiery passion. Hates fighting the urge to put her mouth to good use, to feel pink lips savoring something besides his name. _

_She is murmuring _his_ name in that soft voice that turns him inside out. Without even talking to him. _ _Sounding like she should be describing secret things. How wet she is, how she wants it, how bad she wants it... _

_A muscle twitches in his jaw. She will not do this to him. _

Damn cat.

_Long pale fingers scrub the coffee stains harder. Blue eyes flicker to the coffeemaker. Still brewing._

_Slowly. _

_The urge to violently throw the mug into the wall rises. _

_She keeps on crooning meaningless pleasantries. _

_He wonders how much she can swallow. Stares at pink lips. Thankful of the shades hiding his eyes. _

No way to escape without her noticing something. Fuck.

"_Hey handsome. How are you today? Doing good Al? You've got the most beautiful eyes..." _

_Hands tighten on the mug. It obscene how wound up it makes him, how his mind brings up images of her stroking something else, how he can almost feel her little hand wrapped around aching flesh. Her eager lapping tongue. _

_Blue eyes stare at her hand running over the Al's back from behind dark lenses. Small hands. Capable hands. _

Fuck.

_He shuts his eyes, pushes the images away harshly barely breathing. If she notices he'll rip her goddamn blue eyes out of their sockets. No one has power over him unless he says so. Especially not some nothing rear security officer hired to be fucking combat data fodder. He's not a teenager unable to control his urges. _

_The breathy voice fades. _

_Black coffee burns his throat, the pain a welcome distraction as her footsteps fade down the corridor. _

_Red-gold eyes stare back at him, expression smug. _

If cats could smile...

_He considers poisoning the cat for the hundredth time. Or damaging Valentine's vocal chords. _

_No matter how many times he tries to master the urges, it never seems to work. _

_Wesker does not accept defeat. _

_Ever. He dreams of ripping out her tongue. _

_He buys a coffeemaker for his office the next day._

_Buries the memory as deep as he can. _

* * *

In an alabaster room unnaturally bright Albert Wesker stares at the card.

The Queen of Hearts.

Slams it face down on the table.

A variable. It will effect his plans. Too dangerous.

Pauses.

_Or is it?_

* * *

_His coffeemaker is broken. Its a bad omen. _

"_Hey Alpha-Boss did you hear?" Forest Speyer should have been a gossipy old woman. Nose in everyone's business, mouth flapping to any ear that will listen. Half his information invariably wrong._

_He has found another captive audience. Blue eyes glance at the coffeemaker. Still brewing. Perhaps the thing hates him. _

What crazy new girlfriend does Frost have now? Or had Brad actually managed to bed the college girl he'd been basically stalking?

_Wesker fights the urge to twitch. The station is almost a glorified frat house. Hiring Chambers and Valentine had toned it down. Some. Not nearly enough. _

And stirred other things.

_Forest doesn't wait for an answer. Stopping him once he's started is almost impossible. _

"_The pool's at four hundred now. Barry has the money in evidence. I'm betting she does the walk of shame in a month." _

"_Forest-" Quiet. _

"_Joe and Kevin are thinking three tops. -"_

"_Forest."Louder. _

" _Becca laughed her ass off and said he was friend-zoned -"_

"_Forest."Louder. _

"_And Enrico bet you'd put a stop to it -"_

"_Speyer__." Hiss. _

"_Uh yes sir?"_

"Y_ou realize it is completely unethical to gamble on the..er...liaisons of your fellow employees?"_

"_Uh is it sir?"_

"_Yes Forest. It. Is."_

_Silence. _

"_Who is the pool about?"_

"_Redfield and Valentine Sir." _

"_Ah." Irritation. Face carefully blank. _

_Wesker pours coffee, headache growing behind his eyes. The day couldn't get much worse. _

_Three days later one member of Bravo squad remains. The surviving S.T.A.R.S. are scattered. _

_The pool was never collected. _

_Wesker is disproportionately pleased by this._

* * *

It would destroy Redfield.

The Queen smiles enigmatically at him.

Dead white teeth grin back.

He will be death. She will be his pale horse.

A wild ride for his new world.

* * *

_Love me or hate me both are in my favor...if you love me I'll always be in your heart...if you hate me I'll always be in your mind. _

_- William Shakespeare_

* * *

Whew. Y'all are a tough crowd to get reviews from. Hopefully this will inspire some.


	8. Black Cat

_A/N: DarkGothElegantGirl22: I'm glad you love it! Thank you for reviewing. The M rating will earned from here on out. Wesker would probably wish it was him if he got past being pissed. Control freaks don't like change much. Excella should be laying on a couch ordering some poor fool thrown from the walls don't you think? And again, thank you my favorite reviewer!_

_Sad little tiger: You are one of the three who wrote The Serpent are you not? I bow to the master. The Serpent is amazing. My main inspiration really, along with the Wanderer. I hope to live up to your expectations._

_Welcome back. I hope you are all enjoying this as much as I am. _

_Black Cat_

* * *

_A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. - Oscar Wilde_

* * *

_No. It can't be._

Eyes do not float in thing air. Cats do not materialize around them.

The world can't be that mad.

_Can it?_

Huddled under the blanket Jill stays very still.

Pretending to sleep.

_Walkers in between. Witch's familiar. _

The thin mat is hardly a bed. The concrete recess hardly a frame. Thin blanket barely adequate. More something missing from the wall of a catacomb. Missing a corpse and a prayerbook.

_Or just missing the prayerbook._

Lips almost smile.

The jewel in her chest barely bobs, breaths slow and measured. Eyes barely cracked blue hidden behind pale lashes.

_Remember to breath. Remember to breath. _

Between sleep and waking she sees it. First the eyes.

Then the rest.

_Al. _

Smug orangy eyes. Purring like a small engine. Black cat. Curled comfortably tail to nose.

Tightness in her gut. Claws on her heart. Barely breathing.

_You're not real Al. _

Oh but she wants him to be. The little thing she forgot. Another notch on the list of things she didn't save. Soft and purring at the foot of her bed.

Alive.

One less regret. One less failure.

Warmth seeps through the blanket. A pale body could have been carved from stone.

Still.

_You can't be real. Can'tbecan'tbecan'tbe._

Al has sharp claws. Or was it had?

The scars on her hands have faded. All her scars have faded.

Jill can name where each one should be.

_Breath._

Satisfied feline eyes watch her in the dark. Black cat on a bed.

Glimmers. Gran's voice.

_A black cat on a bed is a harbinger. Death is coming. Keeps your coin close little one. The Ferryman is near. _

The coin.

She always had a coin.

Until now.

Gran hadn't mentioned spares.

_What does the Ferryman look like? _

Barely breathing.

Sharp edges mortared in blood. Bricks of a shattered whole.

* * *

_Five uniforms. All alike. S.T.A.R.S. Uniforms. _

_Blue and new. Laid out neatly before her. Thread sliding through a needle's eye. _

"_You know threading a needle used to mean sex." The voice makes her jump. Needle pricks a slender finger. _

_Jeweled blood wells. _

"_Shit! Damnit Chris don't sneak up on me like that!" Handsome and charming. All-American boy Chris Redfield knew it. _

_Jill knew it too._

_ Butterflies in her stomach. Coppery taste of blood in her mouth as she sucks on the finger. _

"_Sorry. Ripped your new threads already?" Girls fell over themselves for that smile, that effortless charm. He and Forest keep score. _

I'm not a notch.

"_No. It's...a family tradition." Hesitation. Some things are sacred. Secret._

_Chris is a good guy. Would go out of his way for a friend. Eventually a special girl was going to kiss him an__d he would be her Prince Charming. _

_For a special girl. Not for all girls. _

One girl's Prince Charming is another's toad.

_Jill can almost hear Gran's stern reminder. Clever fingers thread the needle. _

_Careful fingers. _

"_Sewing is a family tradition? Valentines are closet housewives? I mean you cook, your desk is always neat..." Free laughter and carefree smile. Its impossible to not return that smile, to not be warmed by it. _

"_And change our own oil, shoot a bulls-eye, disarm a bomb, hold our liquor...beat your ass at pool..." Light and teasing. Being the only woman on the squad can get uncomfortable fast. _

_He laughs harder. _

Once you sleep with one of them you're not one of the guys anymore. You're the piece of ass.

_She's seen it before. Not worth the trouble. _

_Careful fingers pull a coin from a leather pouch, slide it into the hem of the sleeve. Needle pierces. _

_Jill changes the subject. Offers a secret instead. _

"_You know they used to put coins on the eyes of the dead. To pay Charon the Ferryman. My Gran was from across the Atlantic. She made Father Douglas bless these coins.-" _

_Gran's odd mix of religion and superstition had been tolerated by the old priest. Gran had hounded him into submission. Pride wells in her chest. _

"_-And she'd sew them in herself if I didn't. And give me hell." _

"_Your Gran must be something if she can out stubborn you." Handsome head shakes in amusement._

_"Yeah. Yeah she was."_

_A flash to her left. Black blur of movement. _

_The pouch her Gran sent is gone. A feline tail races around the corner. _

"_Shit! Al! Get back here!" Fast as lightening Jill is after him, voice softening to the croon he seems to like. Dodging around the tables and desks. _

"_C'mon Al, its not a mouse. You don't want it..."_

_Jill runs faster. _

_Al doubles back under a table. Shoots past her. _

_Clever fingers catch a black tail as it disappears through a door. _

_The Captain's door. _

Shit. The Captain hates that cat...

"_Al be a good boy and give it here." Behind a desk across the room a sharp intake of breath hisses. _

_Dread uncurls in her gut. Jill snaps to attention. _

_Claws grip flesh through the fabric of her uniform. Again she feels small. Like the first day. _

"_I'm sorry for the interruption Sir. -Ow!"_

_Sharp claws dig into her hands, agile body lands on the floor. Darts under a chair. Her lunge barely misses._

_Smug red-gold eyes. Pouch firmly in his teeth. _

"_I'm sorry sir he's being a thief – Al, come out Al. Its not nice to steal things. C'mon..."_

_The Captain's jaw is clenched. A muscle visibly twitches in his neck. _

_Sweat breaks out on her back. _

_Behind the lenses she feels the burn of his eyes. _

_Jill croons softer._

_Al likes that tone best._

_She bends down._

_The pencil in Wesker's hand snaps. _

Definitely not a cat person.

"_Valentine get him out of my office." The rasp might have been a preplanned cue. A black blur flies out of the office. _

_Jill doesn't hesitate. Al makes the Captain angrier than she has ever seen him. _

_Angrier han she ever wants to see. _

_She flees._

_Al sits next to the blue uniform she laid out. Pouch in front of him, purring away._

_Jill swears his red-gold eyes look extra smug. _

_Through a door across the room blue eyes glare._

_A shiver crawls down her spine._

* * *

_Can't be real. _

Blue eyes shut tight. Breath held. Barely open, a sliver of blue.

Al stares back.

"Al. You're dead. Did you catch zombie mice? Don't bring me any ok?"

Jill croons. Murmurs pleasant nothings in the soft tone he liked best in life. Lulls herself back to sleep.

* * *

On the otherside of one-way glass a pencil snaps. A jaw clenches.

Hellfire eyes blaze. Breath harsh.

Thin lips compressed.

Stare unwavering for long after she has quieted.

* * *

When she wakes again an indent is left in the blanket.

In the shape of a curled cat.

* * *

_I've lived to bury my desires, to see my dreams corrode with rust; now all that's left are fruitless fires that burn my empty heart to dust. - Aleksandr Pushkin_

* * *

A/N: Reviews are very much appreciated!


	9. Id and Ego

_A/N: DarkGothElegantGirl22: Still my favorite. My thanks again. Al is a little shit. I am quite fond of the chaos he creates! I'm glad the unsettling edge is there. This story should not be comfortable for any of the characters. I believe you will like this chapter. :)_

_Really you can thank a week and a half of rain for all these updates. I can never stay idle long._

_This Chapter is for mature audiences. I try to make any and all smut a plot device rather than gratuitous filler. Enjoy._

_Id and Ego_

* * *

_All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. - Edgar Allan Poe_

* * *

His boots are still on, sunglasses in place. Dark pants around his thighs, belt unbuckled. Two long fingers probing.

So wet. So ready.

_A bitch in heat._

Even in sleep.

Pale fingers twist in fine hair, pulling back harshly. An involuntary gasp falls from feminine lips.

He doesn't bother with foreplay.

_She doesn't deserve it._

One small hand reaches for his wrist, the other grasps a thin blanket. A startled moan as hot flesh slides in. Dull slapping sound as flesh meets violently.

Wesker is not gentle.

Savagely he yanks her to her knees, shoves her head down until she is on all fours. A hold she can't break.

Controlling.

Dead white teeth bared in a silent snarl.

Wetness drips down his cock. His breath is a hiss.

_Bitch. Fucking bitch._

Mewling, broken moans rip from her as he thrusts in. Bruises will form on a delicate hip from his grip. A slender back arches.

Dull slapping of flesh. Broken moans. Sweat and musk. Hissing breath.

Animalistic fucking without any pretensions.

_Filthy whore._

Rage fuels him, goads him to buck harder and faster into warm wetness. Left hand in fine hair, pulling her head backward. Blunt fingernails of the right digging into a slender hip. Wringing broken breathy moans from a graceful throat.

Wesker can't tell if they are moans of pain or pleasure.

Doesn't care.

Fucks as if he wants to break her pelvis in two.

Perhaps he does.

Hellfire eyes squeeze shut, blond head thrown back. White teeth dig into a pale lip.

Left hand covers her mouth. Trying to silence the voice in his mind. Low and breathy. A voice of sinful secrets.

"_Al. You're dead. Did you catch zombie mice? Don't bring me any ok? You had beautiful eyes Al...I miss you..."_

He comes hard on a startled gasp. Glowing eyes open wide.

Surprised.

Tan skin instead of pale. Dark hair instead of blond. Echos in his mind.

_"You had beautiful eyes Al...I miss you..."_

Excella's sated body slumps onto the bed. Dark eyes flutter shut, exhausted.

"Albert..." A low moan of his name. Dark lenses hide wide eyes.

_Wrong voice._

Wesker inhales through his nose. Regrets it instantly.

Decay and musk registers, stronger than usual. Nausea tries to bloom in his gut. Indomitable will suppresses it.

_Sex and corpses. Disgusting._

How had he not noticed it?

Dimly he wonders why he was expecting a different face as he pulls up dark pants. Thin lips compressed.

_She will not do this. She will not have this power._

Rage blazes in his gut. Wesker does not admit defeat.

Ever.

* * *

_A booted foot rests on a dark clad knee. _

_Watching. _

_A still pale body curled under a thin blanket. Back facing him. Breath so shallow it's almost invisible. A corpse in its own private recess. _

The lining of a catacomb.

_Fitting for her, dead to the world as she is. The dead belong in graves. A lovely funeral service had been held. Redfield fighting tears for the fragile innocent Juliet on her tomb before him. _

_Dead but not dead. _

Sadly not Romeo enough to kill himself.

_White teeth flash in a sadistic smile behind the one-way mirror. The picture of a crying Chris framed on his desk. _

A picture worth a thousand words.

_Muscular hands note Jill's progress in clinical words. A number not a name. Above all Wesker is still a scientist. Fascinated with the nuances of life. The secrets. Mind alway dispassionate, always meticulous. _

_Godlike. Removed. _

_Her cells obsess him. Cells impervious to his creation, his Ouroboros. A puzzle waiting to be solved. _

_A challenge to be broken. _

_Paper rustles as a page turns. Scraping continues. _

_He will not be outdone. _

Worthy though. She has earned a place in the New World.

_Who would have thought? A stubborn little nothing officer from middle-of-bumfuck-nowhere Racoon City was his key. A blond head cocks to the side in fresh amusement. _

_Pencil scratches against paper. Planning. _

_She will be ready for the surface soon. The sights, the smells, the sounds. So many and so magnified thanks to P30. Those will be her ultimate test. _

Test for her little human mind. A vulture leaving the nest.

_P30 's effect was similar to his own virus. He can hear a worm crawl under the earth, a bird song from a mile away. See in the pitch black of deep earth. In this room. _

_Pencil records. Pale lips smile. _

_Weak human minds cannot handle it. P30 had been tested before. Its subjects had become vegetables from the sensory bombardment. She is the first success. _

_Again. _

So special. Valentine the cockroach.

_Red-gold eyes stare possessively at a still form. His first warrior. _

_First of the worthy. _

_Valkyrie chooser of the slain. _

_Pencil stills. Her breathing changes. Sharp ears can tell. _

_A voice speaks in a tone he never thought to hear again. Low and breathy. Lungs freeze. _

No.

"_Al. You're dead Al. Did you catch zombie mice? Don't bring me any ok?..."_

_Jaw clenches shut. This weakness should have been purged with the others. Should have been._

No. Not now. Not anymore.

_His cock still jumps to attention, twitching and pulsing. So hard it hurts. What would she feel like now? Now in this body more sensitive than before? This body that can almost feel a little hand. An eager tongue. _

Fuck. No.

_A muscle twitches in his jaw. _

_He could make it happen. Could order her to wrap pale lips around him. Ease the ache. Run a hot tongue on the sensitive underside of his cock, wrap a hand around the base..._

"_...You had beautiful eyes Al...I miss you..."_

Goddamn fucking dead cat.

_What would she smell like all wet and ready for him? Musk without decay...sex without the corpses...Her body would be less fragile than Excella's. Able to take his full strength._

_What would it feel like to let go?_

No. She will not have power over him. Ever.

_The pencil snaps in his hand. _

_Wesker sits rigid in the silence. Hellfire eyes wide behind dark lenses. Unseeing._

_Seeing too much. _

What would it feel like to let go?

_Air rushes into his lungs in hard fast gasps. _

_He can't shake the thought. _

_But he can ease the ache in his groin. Booted feet begin a retreat to Excella's bed. _

_She was never satisfied for long. _

_One lingering glance over his shoulder is all he allows. _

* * *

Wesker is still in the dark. Anger caged for now. Loss of control remedied.

Recriminations bitter.

Water runs two doors away as Excella showers. The stench will lessen for a time. Not nearly long enough.

Gloved fingers lace themselves together loosely. Naked eyes narrow.

Plans will be moved up.

He reaches for the journal, eyes flickering over the book it sits by.

Romeo and Juliet.

The foolish idiots ruled by lust. Controlled by it.

_Never. _

Dead white teeth bared.

* * *

_This day's black fate on more days doth depend:  
This but begins the woe others must end. _

_- Romeo and Juliet, 3.1_

* * *

Review please! It's always appreciated.


	10. Bird

_A/N: DarkGothElegantGirl22: Glad you liked it! I don't think he realized it wasn't Jill :) Excella's stubborn and young. Just a little girl playing with the big dogs. This chapter is a bit more about her. Well and its leading into something else. _

_Sad little tiger: Thank you. I was worried it was a bit too much. And you're welcome. He is a romantic but a cruel one. Afterall he dreams of utopia, the ultimate romaticised ideal, but he tries to create it with Purgatory. His nature is on both sides of the chain, yanking in both directions. Wesker can't win. He won't let himself. Thank you again. _

_Welcome back! Y'all are a tough crowd. Enjoy!_

_Bird_

* * *

_Death is a dialogue between the spirit and the dust. - Emily Dickinson_

* * *

The cloak is a faded old camouflage sheet hastily repurposed. The mask is unfinished, crude and cumbersome.

A clumsy beak for a bird of prey. Cloth too bulky for a slender frame.

Have those hands ever held something created so haphazardly? Jill can't remember. Clumsy things don't look right in Wesker's careful gloved hands.

_I don't think so. _

Blue eyes study the worn dark cloth. Shouldn't it be blue? All her uniforms have been blue. Blue and new.

Jill Valentine lives in the frayed old footage of memories. Blue windows to a different soul.

This is a funeral shroud not a uniform. She is a soul who could not pay the Ferryman. Left to wander the world.

To atone for the ones she didn't save. For the traitor's life she didn't take.

_Damned for not killing. Hah. _

Nothing is blue and new where the dead are simply waiting to pass on. This limbo of stagnancy. Unchanging routing of bland food, little sleep, murder, cleaning, and him.

In the end it all ran back to him.

Something is off about his lean form. Sharp features too carefully blank, body too forcefully at ease.

_Wrong. What's not wrong here? Does it matter?_

Yes. It matters. Take note. He is God here.

_Fuck no he's not fucking god. _

Its a mental slap. P30 is insidious, subtle. Or is it the weight of time and repetition?

She doesn't know. Doesn't fucking like it. Fire long thought dead blazes in her.

_He's not god. Fuck him. _

A third figure enters the room. Jill can't spare the energy to notice her. It takes all her anger to hold onto one thought.

"Put it on."

The dark fabric swallows her lying white skin. More honest than she, able to hold the stain of sins. Blood and pain. P30 holds back the smile for her, holds the scream inside.

Sometimes Jill is thankful for it.

She is shattered pieces mortared in blood. Bleeding fresh at every movement. Screaming silently. Calling to heaven to right the wrongs.

Calling for strength it will not give her.

Pale hands reach for the mask.

_A new new face. Reincarnated again. When can I go? When will life be done with me?_

When will he be done with her? What will she be when he is?

Dead. Always dead.

"Stop." The pronounced accent betrays unease, chiseled face too still. The mask looks blunt and crude in his hands.

The air is thick and cold. A second womb cold as ice.

He pulls the cowl up over her head carefully, gently brushing strands of hair out of her eyes.

Jill stares at his clenched jaw.

Harsh hands slam the mask onto her face. The world becomes red, like looking through the spray of arterial blood in the air.

_Life is blood. _

"Go. Do not fail me."

The words are bits of bone.

* * *

_One pale figure towers over another. _

_The air is different._

_Excella finds it harder to breath, tan fingers clenched on a gold clutch. _

_Present but excluded. The lone dark one. _

"_Go. Do not fail me."_

_A girl in a sheet with a garish mask, a clumsy bird of prey. _

_A grotesque parody of a child's Halloween costume exiting the room. _

_His shoulders are tense betraying a blank face and loose hands._

_Excella feels lightheaded._

* * *

Deadly hands had been gentle, carefully draping the cowl over sallow features. Well known features would be recognized too easily.

Excella can't think of any other face he had bothered hiding.

A face he wants kept from Chris Redfield, from the world.

_Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle; she died young. *_

The air is hard to breath. Her steps falter.

Night is a different creature above the surface. Not the thick claustrophobic weight of darkness underground. A living shifting thing of grey shades, twinkling stars, and moonbeams.

Of hungry eyes and sharp teeth sliding through the dark. Of looming dark shapes and blacker shadows.

Nightmares.

Golden skin shivers as Excella glides elegantly through the shadows, lips and nails red as if dipped in blood.

Africa is not safe at night. Not even here.

_The wild things come out at night. _

The eerie whoot of an owl echoes. A beaked mask haunts her mind.

Clumsy for a bird of prey.

Vibrant dark eyes survey the carefully laid out flora. A plan she designed. A piece of her ancient Italian homeland from far away.

Deceptively simple, intricate only in the details.

Restless feet follow a stone path. She will follow to the end, finish what she began.

It is what she is.

Tan shoulders are square, head held high. The carriage of family pride allows no less. She will not disappoint.

Ever.

_Cio che Dio vuole, lo voglio. Family motto of ours. _

Safe was not her road. In the wilds of Africa she will not be afraid.

_Not of my enemies and not of the dark. _

Moonlight bathes the path in a silver glow. A slender hand pulls the shawl tighter.

Dark eyes watchful, chin determined. Her enemies are many. Even here she cannot be completely at ease.

_Not without him._

In the end it all ran back to him.

_What God wills I will. _

The empty place in her chest aches.

He is everything. An old Spanish proverb rises in her mind.

_Take what you want God says and pay for it. _

Excella is always willing to pay the price.

A reflecting pool shines in the moonlight. The world bathed in a silvery glow, colors muted.

Pale skin instead of tan. Hair reflecting a silver sheen. The rush of hate is surprisingly fierce.

A sharp heel shatters the serene surface.

_The corpse girl is not here! She is gone!_

_I am not her. _

_She is not worthy._

* * *

_So beautiful. Muscular and lean, form covered in velvet skin. A body chiseled by a master sculptor. _

_A work of art. A perfect mate for her own perfect form. _

_Her chest feels warm and full. He is here. With her. _

He is here more often now...and less gentle...

_Excella ignores the small voice. He will not find anyone better than her. No other is more worthy. _

_He has merely realized it. _

_She runs elegant hands down the carved torso, admiring and caressing. This never got old. _

_The want never fully sated. The smirk on sharp features bringing the warm quivering feeling back to her gut again and again._

Never enough of him.

_Soft lips plant gentle kisses along his collar bone. _

_Wesker is still, watching her. Startling eyes hidden behind dark lenses he is remote. Godlike._

_Her head goes lower. _

_She will worship. Her god will not need to look else where for devotion. _

_Ever. _

_She will prove it to him._

* * *

The garden is a place of forgetting. She will not think of the corpse girl here.

_She will not taint this place for me. _

Blood red nails touch the petals delicately flared on a thorny stem. Her favorite flower was a red rose.

The flower was white.

Stupid servants unable to follow instructions. Tomorrow it would be fixed.

_How does that trashy American song go? Every rose has its thorns?_

Long slender barbs for defense. To impale its enemies.

Ruby lips in a bloody smile.

Enemies are a badge of honor. Excella stands firm against the bloated carcass of humanity. Disgusting pandering sheep, content to follow any leader.

_Blind fools. _

Tan feet step rhythmicly, following a drumbeat only she can hear.

Yes, she feel will wear her enemies as trophies.

At his side nothing is impossible.

The shadows are long and deep, silvery moonlight waning.

_I am not afraid. _

Something dark stains the ground before her.

A quick dark shape darts onto the path, drops a dark shape at her feet.

An ankle turns as she jumps back shrieking, hands tangling with the sharp thorns. Blood flies as flesh is ripped free. Painting the roses red.

The silver of moonlight cannot dull the eyes glaring up at her. Smug red-gold eyes in a small furry face.

Feline eyes. Like his.

Offering a beaked bird as sacrifice. A clumsy bird of prey.

Poise and confidence desert her.

Excella will swear the black cat wore a bloody smile.

She is not graceful as she runs to the house.

A little girl in the dark.

* * *

_Like one who on a lonely road doth walk in fear and dread, having once turned round walks on _

_and turns no more his head. Because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread. - Mary Shelley's Frankenstein_

* * *

Review! Please?

*A line from the Duchess of Malfi.


	11. Thorns

_A/N: DarkGothElegantGirl22: Jill is blue to me. She wears it so often! Wesker...would probably be black. I think. You will probably like this chapter. Things are changing._

_Please review guys. It's good for the soul. And enjoy. _

_Thorns_

* * *

_These violent delights have violent ends  
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,  
Which as they kiss consume._

_-Romeo and Juliet 2.3_

* * *

The marble balcony is the crown jewel of the African Mansion. Carved marble and iron from Italy, fashioned in intricate Renaissance style. A perfect view of the gardens and the stars.

Worthy of any Juliet, covered in climbing roses.

He is not devoted enough to be Romeo.

_This is not a love story. _

Hiding the rot and death with a shining facade. The wind dilutes the smell of decay. Of mortality.

_Of Excella's perfume._

A tall body leans on iron bars wrought to look like roses, journal cast aside. Staring out into at a garden turned silvery with moonlight. A lonely figure.

Waiting.

She is supposed to return tonight. The voice of sinful secrets.

_Where are you Jill?_

He is carefully still, a strange tension in broad shoulders. Hellfire eyes naked and unreadable.

Wesker had locked her away. Stayed busy in labs far from her cell. Tortured her antibodies.

She was everywhere.

_Thorn in his fucking side. _

Plans had been rushed, she had been sent out earlier than intended. Why? He is careful. Rushing leads to mistakes. The stakes are too high.

"_...You had beautiful eyes Al...I miss you..."_

That voice. That fucking voice echos in his skull, makes a dead heart pound and blood flow. He dreams of tearing out her tongue. Of watching the light fade from blue eyes.

He dreams of small hands and soft lips. She had been covered hastily and sent early.

Tension has ridden his spine for days now.

He cannot escape. Under the lense of a microscope her cells taunt him, beating the best his Ouroboros can give. Surviving.

_Valentine the cockroach. _

It all ran back to her. The wild girl whose very cells defy him.

_Key to Ouroboros. _

Siren voice.

Leather rubs against iron as his grip tightens. Dependance he doesn't like. He needs no one. Wrests by force what he needs.

Force can't take this power. Can't silence the voice echoing in his mind.

It haunts him. Excella does not satisfy.

_No. She will do this._

Distractions are not tolerated. Wesker does not accept defeat. Curses a dead cat.

Hellfire eyes stare, unseeing.

Movement in the garden catches his eye. A cowled figure in a clumsy mask.

_Jill._

Red orbs stare up at him. The cloak swallows her small body, the mask obscures blue eyes. Windows of the past.

No longer Jill Valentine. His Valkyrie. Staring silently from the shadows.

Red-gold eyes glow dully. Unblinking.

Something relaxes.

_No. She will not do this. _

The balcony is high and the rose has thorns.

"Climb Jill."

White teeth in a perfect smile.

* * *

_Africa is wild and beautiful. The land untamed by roads and skyskrapers. Harsh golden planes instead of staid green golf courses. _

_The old sheet flaps behind her as the grass flashes by. Startled gazelle leap away. _

_Muffled laughter rings in her mask. She may be a tamed hawk but this bird can still fly. Away from him P30 is somehow less. _

_Away from him she is almost Jill Valentine. Almost whole. _

_P30 is the cast holding her fragments in but the bloody mortar is drying. Standing on its own._

_The cracks will never be erased but the shape is real. Frankenstein's monster will always have stitches. _

_Claws grip her heart, remind her of the mission. Meet Ricardo Irving. _

_The plane stretches out before her. _

_The bird of prey laughs behind a clumsy mask. _

_A black cat runs beside her. _

_Africa is wild and beautiful and it teaches this to its people._

* * *

A fairy tale prince stands on her balcony.

The lines of her favorite play quiver on the tip of her tongue.

_Wherefore art thou Romeo?_

The mask's red orbs glow in the dark.

Excella falters, breath coming in gasps. Scene ruined, lines forgotten.

This girl will not see her in such a state. Determined chin rises.

_What is her name? Something short, simple from an American nursery rhyme about falling. Jack and...?_

Jill.

Excella stays in the shadow of the mansion.

_He will not see me as a little girl afraid of the dark. _

Delicate cheeks burn.

* * *

"_Hey Jilly." Joe's ragged half mouth tries to smile, rotting fingers hold her face. When did death become normal? When did rot cease to nauseate?_

_Bloody boots swing lazily, a grotesque child up a tree. Brad watches them with filmy eyes. _

"_You used to make great sandwiches you know? And could beat us all at pool..." _

_Days gone remembered so well but she feels so far from. Blond hair swings, a shake of denial._

"_That Jill is dead Joe. I'm not her." Slippery fingers pull her closer. Rancid breath on her pale face. _

"_Yes you are." Viscous fluid on her forehead. The kiss of rotting lips. "You're Jill Valentine. Pool shark, good cook, cat lover, sometime pyromaniac, rear security officer, friend , and fighter. Remember Jill. This won't last forever." _

_What do the figments in her dreams know? _

_A dream and not a dream. _

"_All luck runs out eventually..."_

_Perhaps more than she._

"_...Even bad."_

_Clumps of goo are in her hair. Left by ragged fingers. _

"_Jilly we're with you. Always." _

_Brad watches with filmy eyes. Bloody boots swing. Putrid lips brush her face. _

"_You are stong enough Jill."_

_Jill smiles. _

_Comforted._

* * *

_A solitary tree in the safari, dark shape in gold grass._

_A bird of prey sleeps in black branches under the stars._

_If danger comes it is welcome. If she falls so be it._

_Trivialities._

_The wild things have no use for her tainted flesh. She has no use for it either._

_Jill wakes to smug red-gold eyes and black fur._

_If cats could smile._

_A fire long thought dead slowly igniting._

_"Hi Al."_

_She is almost Jill Valentine._

* * *

The air is thick and cold.

He breaths in a shallow staccato rhythm, throat tight.

She is bleeding on the roses. Painting them red.

His nose can't smell decay.

Nostrils flair. Chest rises and falls.

Blood runs down her hands.

These hands are steeped in blood. Her own and not her own. The skin is white but they will never be clean.

His cat eyes follow her movements, expression almost pained.

Floating dull glow in the dark.

_Al's eyes. The cat and not the cat._

Should she have found a mouse for him? Is he like Al now?

Lips smile under the mask.

Blood pains the roses red. The cloaked girl gets ever higher.

Sharp ears can hear him breath, shallow and quick.

Dark smears on on the bannisters worthy of a vampire romance cover. Succubus sneaking in to steal an unwary soul.

* * *

_The room is the pure dark of deep earth, the silence of many miles underground. The bed is dusty, barely used. _

_Humans need sleep. His need is equal to his humanity._

_Remnants. _

_This was sanctuary from the sights, sounds, and smells._

_Was sanctuary._

_Tension has not left in days. Weeks. _

_Not even in sleep._

"Al? C'mere Al..."

_Paperwork no one ever read laid in piles on a desk. His desk from days gone by. _

_He signs it anyway. Obsessed with details. _

_Somethings never change. _

_She has changed. Valentine was lightly tan and glowing then, dark hair shoulder length. _

_Blue eyes like his own. _

"_You work too hard Captain..."_

_Wesker is quick, faster at the draw than anyone in the R.P.D. The one every gunslinger tried to out do._

_Lungs refuse to breath, quick muscles frozen. _

_Slender hands run down through blond hair, down broad shoulders. Massaging. _

"_Relax..."_

_This is wrong. He should be objecting. Demanding the voice be silent, the hands still. _

_Brilliant mind hazy. Good reasons existed. What were they? Something about regulations? And what else?_

What else?

_Light hands slide over a hard fluttering chest. Rising and falling in quick staccato rhythm._

_Lips by a pale ear._

"_You could let go..."_

No.

_Harsh hands are strangling the pillow, eyes no longer blue wide and startled. _

No.

_Power he won't share. Albert Wesker does not let go._

_Of anything._

* * *

The mask slides off with ease. Blue windows glitter. The cloak is ragged, stained and ripped. Hands bleeding.

Snowy face pure, ironic innocence intact.

Juliet still.

Blue eyes are lit, unreadable and unblinking. Different.

_She can't know. She can't._

It festers.

_Can she?_

Knowledge is power.

Her mouth opens and closes but no sound emerges. Fire consumes blue eyes, lips turn in a mocking smile.

Fire he thought dead.

"You have Al's eyes. He liked it when I talked. Do you? Do you purr now? Will you bring me zombie mice?"

_That _voice. Sinful secrets in the dark. Mocking. He is frozen lungs and wide eyes.

She has never spoken to _him_ in that voice.

Pavlov's dog in his pants, hard and yearning. Could the rest of her live up to the voice? Would little hands make him gasp and moan? Would a small tongue find sensitive places?

_What would it feel like?_

What could that voice make him do?

_Yes. Yes. Yes. All of the above stupid fucking bitch._

Gasoline poured on the fires of his rage.

Her throat is in his fist before she can blink, lifting a small body and pulling it close.

Lips almost touching. Fist tightening. His hands want to crush her voice box, watch those fucking eyes bulge. Deny it all.

"Stupid bitch." The words hiss out of his throat, clawing and biting. Lips brushing hers.

Burning on a face rabid with rage and frustration. Her eyes are wide and afraid. Long fingers tighten.

_She will pay. Fucking bitch. _

Part of him is pleased.

"_...You had beautiful eyes Al..."_

The crash as her limp form hits is loud in the stillness.

A hard chest collapses and expands, air rasping down a tight throat. Lips burning.

"_You have Al's eyes."_

He is not devoted enough to be Romeo.

A boot impacts a blond head.

_She will not have this power. _

Thudding boots echo as a door shuts.

Bleeding bird on the marble.

Wesker does not admit defeat.

Ever.

_What would it feel like to let go? _

This was not a love story.

* * *

Excella Gionne has never seen Albert Wesker so angry. So alive.

_What did you do unworthy girl?_

The silence amplifies, the night air a conductor of his rage.

Dark eyes watch. Reminded of a bloody bird at a cat's feet.

Golden skin shivers.

He looks the part of a fairy prince.

She has forgotten most fairy tales come from bloody roots.

The boogeymen are real little girl. The dark is alive.

* * *

_Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player_

_That struts and frets his hour upon the stage_

_And then is heard no more: it is a tale_

_Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,_

_Signifying nothing._

_- Macbeth_

* * *

A/N: Hey! Review! Tell me what you think.


	12. Pandora's Box

_A/N: DarkGothElegantGirl22: Thank you again for reviewing so faithfully! Wesker...doesn't like admitting things, especially to himself. Don't worry, he'll get there! Well as far there as he can. Probably not in a way anyone expects but he'll get there! :) _

_OCS: Thank you! I'm afraid it's all very rough, this is really just for fun. I hope it keeps improving. :)_

_Sorry for the delay. I can only seem to write this story when it rains. Odd but true. On the bright side finally know where its going. Y'all may kill me for it, but I promise you won't expect it. Enjoy!_

_Pandora's Box_

* * *

_Fury...drives us to our finest heights and coarsest depths...This is what we are, what we civilize ourselves to disguise - The terrifying human animal in us, the exalted, transcendent, self-destructive, untramelled lord of creation._

_- Salman Rushdie_

* * *

A drum beats painfully in her head, rhythm a perfect match to her heart. Air rasps down a swollen throat while sticky hands throb dully.

Pain is beginning to mean nothing, this body isn't her own.

The sunlight paints marble, iron, and roses in a golden tint, the perfect cover for a tawdry romance novel. All it needs is a well-endowed damsel in the arms of some half-naked white knight with a catch phrase about love conquering all slapped underneath them.

Blood spoils the illusion, a drying trail of rust along the marble leading to the pool her head lies in.

Jill lays unmoving, blue eyes wide and unfocused. Looking into the past, seeing hellfire full of rage and want. Remembering a body betraying itself, burning lips brushing her own.

_It can't be. It can't._

Turning the thought over obsessively for the hundredth time. Memories replaying in a new light.

_Could it? _

Albert Wesker, the remote Captain, aroused, rattled, and disgusted.

Only the pool of drying blood convinces her that no, she did not, in fact, dream it. The concept is on par with alien abductions...and the zombie Apocalypse.

_Maybe he is human afterall._

The floor is hard but warm enough in the African air, the sun a steady light in the east. How many hours has she been here?

Jill doesn't care. Doesn't care about the pounding in her head or the pain in her throat. The freakishly disconcerting idea clouding her every thought.

_The world just went sideways. Pandora's box opened. The cat got out of the bag._

She knew. Unknowing was not an option. Forgetting even less of one.

Albert Wesker had stared at her like a monk getting a lapdance. Full of disgust and fury but not enough to hold back the want boiling through. Self-loathing not quite enough to blunt a forbidden want.

A shudder runs down alabaster skin, she had felt the evidence against her, hard and thick.

_Wesker doesn't ask. He's going to take one of these days...unless..._

A lightbulb flickers on in the dim recesses of memory, refracting off a thousand splinters.

_No duh Valentine. Way to forget years of knowing the man. _

It was a weakness, a disgusting human weakness. Hadn't the Captain ranted over and over about how the guys could get so much more done if they thought with the right head? About how the human race was, as he put it, "so disgustingly base and obsessed with procreation"?

A slow hard smile crawls across her face.

Wouldn't he hate being reduced to their level?

_He won't touch me because it'd be like fucking a monkey. _

A small rush of satisfaction. About damn time someone wiped that fucking smirk off his face.

A black cat comes to rest by her face, purring like a small engine.

"What should I do Al?"

_Knowledge is power._

A broken bird lays on the marble, blue eyes calculating.

Talons sharp, a bird of prey.

* * *

Half a world away a report surfaces with a picture of a blond woman in Africa.

_Jill._

A strong body shakes like the tail of an angry rattlesnake. It can't be true. She's dead, he mourned her as dead.

A miracle survival or cruel hoax? How could she be alive?

Chris Redfield rereads the report until the words are ingrained in his memory, the photo a knife he holds by the blade.

* * *

Books and splinters of wood litter the floor, bits of a shattered chair. The aftermath of a child's tantrum with a titan's strength. A display of petulance he is glad no one witnessed, deep in the dark underground.

In his mind he is still on the balcony and every crack had been her bones (_it was the cracking of furniture as he fucked her violently into the floor, legs around his waste, hands in short gold hair_), every thud her flesh impacting concrete(_the sharp slapping of flesh against flesh_).

A conflicting tangle of confused, heated want.

He tells himself he is not disappointed to open red-gold eyes and not find her there. Would he find her blood sprayed over the room in some macabre painting or lying exhausted and sated beside him?

Some sleeping dogs he leaves alone, some doors he does not want opened.

Fucking Jill Valentine the cockroach with her fucking voice haunting him, bringing back weaknesses he had left behind with humanity. With mortality. With need.

Albert Wesker does not need. He commands, controls, and takes. Need is weakness.

A gloved hand pinches the bridge of his nose before a flaxen head jerks back, nostrils flaring. Leather impacts the opposite wall. A childish gesture, his nose is so sensitive he can still smell her skin on those gloves from across the room.

_Fucking girl, what have you done? _

Rage is a roaring river crashing through him. A trembling hand rises to rest on lips that still burn, even from a brief brush. Nothing has ever brought him so low, nothing has ever wormed into him so insidiously.

She is everywhere, in his dreams, in his research, in his blood, in Ouroboros.

Jill Valentine is the key to his New World.

He had not realized she is also the skeleton key to himself.

_Stupid fucking bitch. _

Wesker stands motionless in the center, surrounded by the carnage of his fit. A strong jaw is set, a thin grim line of a mouth. Such wasteful loss of control is disgusting, especially to one as self-possesed as him.

It is beneath him, unacceptable. Tense dark arms cross, hands clenching to still their tremors.

Albert Wesker has iron self-control. He is perfect, godlike.

_Its her fault. She is the flaw. _

Nothing had disturbed his deadly calm before she had woken, nothing had effected his focus, made a dead heart pound and an empty chest ache. His mouth compresses further, lips almost invisible, the only movement of his still body. The storm brews inside him, the surface a deceptive calm.

Perhaps he should finish her. Another variable out to ruin his careful order.

He hates variables, removes them.

Yet...she has proved her worth. Survived Racoon, the T-Virus, and so much more. Her very cells are the key to Ouroboros. She is the mother of his New World, the first of the worthy. He can't deny her place in his pantheon.

If he kills her now, now when he still needs her cells and can't deny her survival, what was all this for? What kind of hypocrite does that make him? Mere human weakness driving his behavior?

_Skeleton key. _

Or are these excuses?

_Gods do not need excuses. _

A muscle starts to twitch in his jaw, storm skimming the surface. He shakes off the urge to give the massacred chair another kick. Naked fingers rub tired eyes, an ache building in the back of his skull.

He can almost see her bleeding body lying on marble, ringed with roses and iron. A broken bird, a damsel in distress.

He is no knight in shining armor.

Her blue eyes had been so wide, so afraid...so shocked.

_She hadn't known. _

She would know now, know the dirty secret he had hidden for so many years, buried under years of time and dusty memory. A weakness that should have been cleansed, removed along with mortality.

One he had stupidly revealed.

_Soft lips on his own, responding of their own volition to his want._

_What would it feel like...? _

A cloud of wood splinters erupts from the wall as Wesker kicks the last recognizable piece of chair, glaring at the wreckage.

* * *

Bloody streaks marred her beautiful balcony, the corpse girl's rancid fluid. High heels step delicately around them, sharp nose wrinkling in disgust.

_Really scientists are getting so messy these days. Did they have to drive the gurney through the only blood puddle in the area? _

Excella had ordered the girl's removal. She did not belong, a sore on the smooth romantic beauty of the mansion. Besides _he_ would be rather irritated if his pet died before she was broken.

Even if he was the cause.

Excella tells herself she does not mind cleaning up the mess he made in her favorite place, picking up his broken toys. He is God. Of course he does not clean.

Gold lettering on leather calls to her as elegant feet pivot. On the glass patio table are two books surrounded by pens, a plain leather bound research journal and a book she knows by heart, red nails tracing the embossed title.

_Romeo and Juliet. Perhaps taken by mistake?_

Slim hands grip both tightly as she clatters gracefully away, following a rusty trail.

* * *

_Blue eyes open to a forest she knows. A forest that no longer exists. The shell of a burning helicopter. _

_The beginning. _

_Jill can't breath, mouth agape. Slimy fingers brush a thin shoulder making her jump and scream._

"_Shhh Jilly it's just me." Filmy decayed eyes watch her expressionlessly, Brad's calm voice a surreal contrast. _"_We're running out of time Jilly, you have to hurry. But you're almost there.-"_

What?

"_-but you've gotta pay attention. In the labs. It's the key you know?"_

_Brad's grimy hands grip her shoulders. Jill stares at him with tired eyes. Doesn't he know Jill Valentine is dead? The hero is dead and gone? _

_She is just tired. Tired of ridiculous riddles, of blood and pain, tired of life. Who the hell decided a little nothing officer from bumfuck nowhere Racoon City was going to play hero? Who made her responsible for so many lives? Hadn't she sacrificed enough? _

Whatever happened to Rest In Peace? Oh right, the zombie fucking Apocalypse.

_Blond hair swings in denial, blue eyes shut tight and open again full of tears. How much is enough? _

"_Brad -" He keeps talking like he can't stop, the words vomiting out of his rotting mouth. _

"_You're doing so good Jill, just a little longer ok? You're not alone. Now go on, you're not done."_

_She doesn't want to. _

* * *

Pain is the first thing to come back. Pain in her hands, her head, her throat.

_Oh. Right. That. _

The fumes of sterility and the reek of humanity hit her. A continuous beeping in the corner. Following her heartbeat.

_A lab. Again. _

P30 keeps her calm, keeps the panic at bay. The beeping doesn't change. Her dose must be very high.

He is not there. She knows it. P30 is less.

Something relaxes.

"_Pay attention. In the labs..."_

Fire burns steadily in her. Perhaps the figments know something she doesn't.

What does she have to lose?

Her life? Her free will?

The door shuts with a click as the last human leaves, the sickly sweetness of decay lessening.

A cat's meow breaks the air making pale lips smile, blue eyes open.

P30 can't stop her.

A slim hand reaches for the leather journal on the silver work table.

For secrets.

_Knowledge is power._

She begins to read.

A black cat purrs beside her.

Another book lies unopened, gold embossed letters glittering.

* * *

Wesker does not go near her for weeks.

The not-dead ghost he can't escape, a memory he can't bury.

_Skeleton key. _

Tension rides his spine.

Pandora's box can't be reclosed.

Not even by Albert Wesker.

* * *

_Only a few find the way; some don't recognize it when they do; some don't ever want to. - The Cheshire cat_

* * *

Review! It's good karma I promise.


	13. First Cracks

_A/N: DarkGothElegantGirl22: Thank you again! It is obsession, you're totally right. On both ends, in this case. Its a little scary really, their web of tangled emotion. You'll like this one. Wesker doesn't admit anything but he is starting to break. I'm glad you loved it! :) _

_thelexhex: Thank you! I do love constructive criticism! I'm sorry if it gets confusing, its probably my tendency to get distracted by all the shiny ideas showing. I'm still working on making it seamless and still fitting everything in. And honestly I agree with you, in game cannon Wesker only cares about himself. Any pairing is really a crack pairing, but I read The Serpent and the Wanderer and...its a fun dynamic to play with. The idea of the station cat came from another fic, called A cat named Albert...I think. But with his Cheshire-catlike qualities he's a bit different here. I hope you continue to enjoy it, and don't worry there will be no mushiness! :) _

_Welcome back to all y'all that have made it this far! Please review if you find time, k? And above all, enjoy!_

_First Cracks_

* * *

_Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust,_

_Like diamonds we are cut with our own dust._

_-Ferdinand, The Duchess of Malfi_

* * *

An arm rips off with a hard snap, bloody spraying out to stain the white room. Jill slams the limb viciously into the final Majini's head, bludgeoning over and over. A brutal outlet for her repressed psyche.

A small defiance. He would hate the careless messiness of the kill. Jill is glad he can't see her face under the mask, won't know the feral smile. Another round of training ended.

_Girl's gotta have some secrets left. _

The heavy weight of unseen eyes at her still back a prodding reminder of who is watching behind reinforced glass. A weight missing for weeks, but back with a vengeance.

Wesker hasn't gotten close to her since that day, keeping a safe distance.

_Who does he distrust more? Me or himself? Who is he trying to fool? _

P30 keeps both the laughter and the taunts in, a forced self-preservation. An instinct she has lost, along with fear. Probably the most dangerous man in the world hiding from a girl with no free will who is at his command.

_God's got a fucked up sense of humor, but he can tell one hell of a joke. _

She walks carelessly through the bodies coating the floor, catching her cloak on protruding ribs. A short show of tight battlesuit before the cloak rips, shroud returned. Twisting the invisible knife in his flesh.

Pain for pain.

A move too plausibly accidental for a direct reprisal. Jill is fearless not stupid.

A cornered animal is the most dangerous kind.

* * *

Black boots face the one way-glass, hidden and invisible. Wincing at the mess unfolding before him, feline eyes unblinking.

Observation. A place he has not been in weeks.

He had not meant to come here. The plan was to send her out to the field and keep her there, safely away. Hiding.

It stings his pride.

_One stupid girl won't rule here. _

If her voice was silenced what was the harm? She had no free will. A powerless opponent. What was he so worried about exactly? Why was he behaving as though she was the most dangerous creature in the compound?

_What could a caged bird do? Nothing._

The tightness inside him isn't as easily convinced, the tension riding him hard for weeks growing stronger and stronger.

It would destroy him yet. Already this weakness had brought another variable to his plan. Another flaw.

_Haste breeds mistakes. _

He should kill her. A photo had found its way to the B.S.A.A, to Redfield. Chris the hero would come for her.

Would take the key to his new world. He will not allow it, defeat is not an option.

Defeat is never an option.

The file is laid on the small table, forgotten for the moment as he watches.

Jill beats the last Majini's head into pulp with its own arm, spraying blood everywhere. Soaking the cloak, making it cling to the small body underneath.

His breath catches slightly as she walks toward him – _Does she know who watches? - _and the cloak catches on bits of sharp bone, revealing for an instant a taunt body in a skin tight suit.

He wants more and less, to be closer and to shove her away. Which urge would win given the chance is a mystery, even to him.

_One girl will not do this. _

He punches a different button the mechanism crumbling under his fist. Broken. It was time for something new. Time to introduce her to the thing she had helped bring into being.

_Fucking whore._

Part of him watches eager for her intestines to be spilled onto the floor. Another part has him holding his breath, spellbound by deadly grace.

* * *

The creature released she had never seen before, covered in ugly black tentacles like a pit of snakes. Medusa brought to life, freezing Jill in place still as stone.

Long enough to throw her across the room, shattering her mask, splitting her lip and breaking the illusion. Jill drags herself up, leaping and twisting to avoid another throw. Tossing the cloak over tentacled limbs for a moments distraction.

_Is that a face...? This too was human once?_

Human meant weakness, a place to strike. Jill doesn't pause to consider what the thought entails as black limbs splay towards her.

This was not a debate.

One of the Majini had carried an ax, one she had imbedded in the wall to the left, behind whatever-the-hell-it-was.

Fear has long been beaten out of her. Jill leaps toward the creature without hesitation, feet impacting some pulsing organ-like part of it. The soft piece ruptures as the creature gives an unearthly wail. A tentacle lashes out and catches her back, the tough fabric ripping like paper.

_That hurt it. Good. _

The ax slips free of the wall with ease, P30 fueling her aching muscles. The blade connects with the face, exploding viscous fluid as the thing slumps to the ground.

_What was that? _

A door clicks open behind her.

"Surviving as always Jill. You could be related to a cockroach." The thud of boots comes closer, she can feel the burning weight of eyes on the long expanse of bare back where her battle suit had ripped free.

P30 holds the shiver in. She is grateful.

"Beautiful wasn't it? It will bind with the DNA of the worthy and wipe out the rest. A race of superhumans, a new pinnacle of evolution." His voice echoes in the vaulted room, a sermon for a captive audience. As charismatic and mesmerizing as any she remembered from long ago.

Albert Wesker was a natural leader, when he talked it was so easy to listen.

To agree.

Jill does not meet his covered eyes as he comes to a stop in front of her, keeping her steady gaze at neck level. Whatever response he wants, she'll be damned before he gets it.

"Your precious Chris is looking for you. I could kill you now and send him pieces of your body, break his spirit."

Hope swells in her chest as guilt burns in her gut, and above all worry mounts her. Can Chris really defeat this man? This man who has given himself strength beyond what mortals should ever touch?

_Chris is alive! He's looking for me! And I haven't thought of him in so long...why haven't I thought of him? _

"It's your fucking fault you stupid cunt. You were careless in the field. I should kill you for endangering my plans."

The sound of his pacing is loud in the silent room. Jill holds her breath, unready to die now when Chris is coming for her, when a light is finally at the end of this dark tunnel. Wesker continues talking, uncaring of her turmoil. Forgetting she is even there.

"But your antibodies made this possible. The Ouroboros virus. The product of your tenacity and my brilliance. Our child. You are the mother of my new world Jill. I cannot deny that."

Mockery and disgust in his voice, lips curling in distaste. Anger radiates from him. The air is thick.

"When Chris Redfield comes for you he will die. He should have died in the mansion and spared us all this trouble. The New World will be so much more than this. Why can't you stupid humans understand?"

A muscle jumps visibly in his neck, jaw tense. A gloved hand graps her chin hard between steady fingers, roughly angling her face upward.

For once Jill is glad his eyes are hidden. She is afraid of what would be in them, afraid of the rage driving him now.

"Think of it. A world not bloated by corruption, not encumbered by lethargic humans eating, sleeping, and getting fat. Worthless creatures who won't even raise a hand to survive as long as someone pays them." The sibilant voice is ripe with contempt, a snort escaping him. Wesker holds her small face in one hand, but her eyes cant sideways. Away, anywhere but the madman in front of her.

Trying to hide the small parts she has left of her soul.

Abruptly the dark glasses are removed, hellfire eyes glowing dully.

"Look at me."

Jill doesn't want to, doesn't want to see whatever is in those eyes. Doesn't want him to see that she has thought the same thing before. When Bravo squad was newly dead, and Joe Frost was ripped to shreds before her eyes and no one was held accountable for their screaming end.

When she had told _everyone_ there were fucking flesh eating things out there and all she got was laughter and derision.

P30 gives her no choice.

Feline eyes burn and rage, a monk staring at a stripper, and some strange light she can't place. Those eyes look through her, pierce her heart with their sharp tip. Wringing bloody drops for the man who killed hundreds.

"You think I'm evil, but the world needs this. If so many of your "innocent people" had stood up and fought for survival, had put a stop to this research so many had been involved in do you think we would be here now?"

Hot leather bites into her face, and blood trickles down her chip from the split lip on to it. Jill tries desperately to hold the bitter, tired part of her out of her eyes. The part that wants everyone to fucking pay for not listening after the mansion and again after Racoon. To pay for being able to continue their stupid daily lives without the nightmares.

Who cared about the price of gas or Justin Beiber when the dead walked?

Small white teeth sink into her bleeding lip without thinking, and his eyes flicker down to her mouth, staying for a long moment. His throat works in a swallow.

"Umbrella had been creating these things for years. This isn't new, so many have been part of it. Can you really call me evil for wanting a better world? For trying to make it? Answer me."

The tone tries for mocking but fails, coming out demanding and deep, tinged with a husky desire laid bare. Control slipping.

"Answer me."

Claws twist on her heart, P30 squeezing the reply out of her. The ugly truth laying plain for all to see.

"No. I can't. Sometimes I think the same." The words are bits of her sacrificed soul.

_But then I think of Joe, Chris, Barry, and STARS and how hard we fought and how much we believed in __our Captain. And I think that when you betray what good is left, what right do you have to a better world? Couldn't you see it was there all along? _

The rest of her answer thrashes in her chest, P30's iron grip a vice. Jill can't force them out, can't vocalize the distinction she _needs_ to make. Tears slide down her face.

_No. I'm not like you. I'm not like you. I can't be. _

Wesker stares, mouth open, shock obvious in fiery eyes. Still as stone, glove still gripping her face. An answer he had not expected.

Almost as if he had forgotten she could speak.

For long minutes they stand as though carved from stone. Tears mix with the blood on his black glove, washing it clean.

Blue eyes finally slide shut, the thrashing inside of her finally stronger than the claws on her heart. Too little too late. The hot hand supporting her face is gone and she slumps against a hard body. Lips grazing his neck, hands clinging.

A his pulse jumps visibly in front of her face, body tense under small hands. The cracking of his control almost audible.

One gloved hand twists in blond hair, jerking her head back before demanding lips come down hard on her own, a tongue shoved roughly into her mouth.

Jill doesn't hesitate, giving back just as fiercely. Scraping small white teeth over the tongue in her mouth. Pouring all the suppressed rage, frustration, and hate into this kiss he will hate himself for later. The only punishment she can use against him.

_I'm going to make you love this. I'm a fucking monkey you'll try to scrub off yourself later motherfucker but you're going to keep coming back for this that you hate. _

Her right hand slides up to fist in perfect blond hair as her left caresses hard features, smearing him with gore. She bites down hard on his lower lip, tasting blood, making him groan low in his chest.

As quickly as it starts the kiss ends, she is shoved roughly away hitting the floor hard. Jill gets a glimpse of a panicked face as he disappears out the door as fast as inhuman speed will carry him.

A small pale body lays on the bloody floor, smiling through her tears.

A black cat bumps her wet face, purring.

She has made Albert Wesker run. It doesn't happen everyday.

* * *

..._each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves._

_-Laura Esquivel_

* * *

A/N: Almost to the end of Part 1. Review if you like!


	14. Curtain

_A/N: DarkGothElegantGirl22: Yes she is! Afterall, she's spent so much time around him something has to rub off. It makes them a perfect pair, in a sense. Not a healthy pair but still. I hope you'll stay around for Part 2! The real fun between the two of them starts there. _

_Hey all! It's been a fun ride. This is the end of Part 1. Part 2 will be truly AU and if you hate AU this can be seen as a stand alone. Either way, enjoy! _

_Curtain_

_A greater power than we can contradict _

_Hath thwarted our intents _

_Romeo and Juliet 5.3_

The hot liquid burns his mouth, scalding away the memory of her. Wesker spits the scalding water out into the sink, not bothering to watch it circle the drain. It wasn't enough. He is almost tempted to reach for the hydrochloric acid in the cabinet, the wild panicked feeling still holding him by the throat.

_Almost. No Jill, you cannot make me fool enough for that. _

Dark hands grip the sink, tall body bowed over it. Hellfire eyes reflecting ruefully in the mirror from a blood smeared face, normally perfect hair wild.

His tidy soul can't help the reflexive wince. Such disorder...all from one stupid girl.

_Bitch. Why? Why did she have to...?_

Dully glowing eyes screw shut, rage focused inward. He could have killed her. Would have, he wanted to so desperately. To wipe out her flawed stain on his plans, on himself. Ripped out her intestines, left her gore to mingle with the lesser creatures she had destroyed.

The sink begins to crack, porcelain unable to take the strength of his fingers.

He can see it, her broken body. An end to this torment.

Except...

"_No. I can't. Sometimes I think the same."_

Why did he ask? What stupid impulse had driven him? To demand an answer he didn't even really care to know.

If she hadn't said just _that, _without any recrimination or reproach, he could have kept squeezing until her jaw had the hero gone? The girl who called him pathetic, goaded him?

_Why the fuck did she have to kiss back?_

If she had fought...if she had struggled, begged him to stop...then it would have simply been another thing he could take from her. Another lesson about the rights of Godhood.

But she hadn't. Her lips had been so soft, so responsive... Vicious and yet gentle.

_Fuck it had felt good. So good. Fuck. Fuck._

The sides of the sink crumble. Feline eyes give the cabinet a long look. He reaches for the rubbing alcohol.

_Fuck._

Anything to burn the memory of weakness away.

Albert Wesker does not need.

The jarring vibration of a cell phone in his coat pocket startles him, almost making leather fingers slip.

"Wesker."

Pale lips scowl fiercely. The churning inside of him must wait.

Chris Redfield has arrived.

He takes a swig out of the glass bottle, spitting viciously into the ruined sink.

_Fuck._

The sand is winding down in his hourglass. He can feel it.

* * *

The helicopter's blades slice the air, loud enough to deafen.

Jill can barely hear them, gaze stuck in the fiery heart of the volcano. With him, the one who had meant so much for so long. Defined her.

_What now? _

P30 isn't there to hold the tears and the screams in. Instead of the explosion of emotions Jill had expected is only a strange sense of loss.

A lack of purpose.

Chris and Sheva murmur in low voices as the metal bird touches down. The pretty African girl as wild and beautiful as her country.

_I can finally rest. Why is it not enough?_

Her lips still tingle, a burning memory she won't look at yet. An admission ripped out, a dark part of herself Jill is afraid will surface again.

A part far too much like him for her comfort.

As the blades slow and the dust settles, she lets Chris help her down from the helicopter. A black cat runs out of the grass toward her.

_A wandering soul who could not pay the Ferryman. _

"Hey kitty, what are you doing here?" Chris reaches a hand out to stroke black fur.

_Will I see him in my dreams? _

For once she is glad Al has Wesker's eyes.

* * *

_The hour of departure had arrived and we go our ways - I to die and you to live._

_Which is better God only knows._

_-Anon_

* * *

Part 2 is called _The Fury. _I made it a separate story since this can be a stand alone if you're sick of reading my crap. :)

I hope y'all join me for the rest.


End file.
